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THE    MAYFAIR   SET 

I 

THE 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF  A  BOY 


THE    MAYFAIR    SET 

Foolscap  Svo.     3s.  6d.  each. 

1.  Tlie  Autobiography  of  a  Boy,  by  G.  S. 
Street,   with    Title-page   designed  by 

C.   W.   FURSE. 

2.  The  Joneses  and  the  Asterisks,  a  Story 
in  Monologue,  by  Gerald  Campbell, 
with  six  Illustrations  and  a  Title-page 
by  F.  H.  TowNSEND. 

3.  Select  Conversations  with  an  Uncle 
{now  extinct),  by  H.  G.  VV^ellSj  with  a 
Title-page  by  F.  H.  Townsend. 

(in  preparation) 

4.  For  Plain  Women  only,  by  George 
Fleming. 

6.  Mrs.  Albert  Grundy,  Observations  in 
Philistia,  by  Harold  Frederic. 

6.  The  Feasts  of  Autolycus,  the  Diary  of 
a  Greedy  Woman,  edited  by  Elizabeth 
Robins  Pennell. 


Fifth  Edition 


Edinburgh  :  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  Her  Majesty 


^037 


THE    EDITOR'S    APOLOGY 

In  fulfilling  a  promise  made  to  my  friend, 
whom  by  your  leave  I  will  call  simply 
Tubby,  I  have  been  conscious  of  a  some- 
what difficult  dilemma.  When  he  went  to 
Canada,  he  placed  the  manuscript  of  his 
autobiography  in  my  hands,  with  power  to 
select  and  abridge.  I  perceived  that  if  I 
published  it  in  all  its  length  nobody  would 
read  it :  his  life  in  England  was  not  various, 
his  orbit  was  circumscribed,  the  people  he 
met  and  the  situations  he  faced  had  a  cer- 
tain sameness,  the  comments  he  made  on 
them  dealt  in  repetitions.  On  the  other 
hand,  having  made  my  selections  on  the 
principle  of  giving  you   none  but  typical 


viii        AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

incidents,  and  these  but  once,  I  find  the 
result  is  meagre,  and  fear  you  may  be  angry 
at  being  troubled  with  it  at  all.  Tubby 
himself  was  for  publishing  the  whole.  But 
craving  your  pardon,  if  you  be  angry,  I 
think  it  is  better  to  be  amused  (if  amused 
you  be)  for  an  hour  or  so  than  to  be  bored 
for  a  day.  I  do  assure  you,  you  could  have 
borne  no  more. 

The  autobiography  covers  only  the  period 
from  his  leaving  Oxford  to  the  other  day, 
and  it  may  therefore  be  well  to  give  you  a 
few  facts  of  his  earlier  life,  and  perhaps  a 
word  or  two  concerning  the  period  men- 
tioned above,  since  I  may  be  deceived  by  my 
intimate  acquaintance  with  him  in  thinking 
that  his  mode  of  life,  his  point  of  view,  and 
his  peculiar  qualities  are  indicated  suffi- 
ciently by  himself. 

He  was  expelled  from  two  private  and 
one  public  school ;  but  his  private  tutor 


THE  EDITOR'S  APOLOGY  ix 

gave  him  an  excellent  character,  proving 
that  the  rough  and  ready  methods  of  school- 
masters' appreciation  were  unsuited  to  the 
fineness  of  his  nature.  As  a  young  boy  he 
was  not  remarkable  for  distinction  of  the 
ordinary  sort — at  his  prescribed  studies  and 
at  games  involving  muscular  strength  and 
activity.  But  in  very  early  life  the  infinite 
Indulgence  of  his  smile  was  famous,  and  as 
in  after  years  was  often  misunderstood;  it 
was  even  thought  by  his  schoolfellows  that 
its  effect  at  a  crisis  in  his  career  was  largely 
responsible  for  the  rigour  with  which  he 
was  treated  by  the  authorities  :  *  they  were 
not  men  of  the  world,'  was  the  harshest 
comment  he  himself  was  ever  known  to 
make  on  them.  He  spoke  with  invariable.^ 
kindness  also  of  the  dons  at  Oxford  (who 
sent  him  down  in  his  third  year),  com- 
plaining only  that  they  had  not  absorbed 
the  true  atmosphere  of  the  place,  which  he 


X  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

loved.  He  was  thought  eccentric  there,  and 
was  well  knoAvn  only  in  a  small  and  very 
exclusive  set.  But  a  certain  amount  of 
general  popularity  was  secured  to  him  by 
the  disfavour  of  the  powers,  his  reputation 
for  wickedness,  and  the  supposed  magni- 
ficence of  his  debts.  His  theory  of  life 
also  compelled  him  to  be  sometimes  drunk. 
In  his  first  year  he  was  a  severe  ritualist,  in 
his  second  an  anarchist  and  an  atheist,  in 
his  third  wearily  indifferent  to  all  things,  in 
which  attitude  he  remained  in  the  two 
years  since  he  left  the  University  until  now 
when  he  is  gone  from  us.  His  humour  of 
being  carried  in  a  sedan  chair,  swathed  in 
blankets  and  reading  a  Latin  poet,  from  his 
rooms  to  the  Turkish  bath,  is  still  remem- 
bered in  his  college. 

When  he  came  to  live  in  to^vn,  he  used 
to  quote  '  Ambition  was  my  idol,  which  was 
broken ' ;    but    I    think    he    never    really 


THE  EDITOR'S  APOLOGY  xi 

thought  of  it,  certainly  not  in  its  common 
forms,  but  lived  his  artistic  life  natm-ally, 
as  a  bird  sings.  One  or  two  ambitions  he 
did,  however,  confide  to  his  intimates.  He 
desired  to  be  regarded  as  a  man  to  whom 
no  chaste  woman  should  be  allowed  to 
speak,  an  aim  he  would  mention  wistfully, 
in  a  manner  inexpressibly  touching,  for  he 
never  achieved  it.  I  did  indeed  persuade  a 
friend  of  his  and  mine  to  cut  him  in  the 
park  one  crowded  afternoon;  but  his  joy, 
which  was  as  unrestrained  as  his  proud 
nature  permitted,  was  short-lived,  for  she 
was  cruelly  forgetful,  and  asked  him  to 
dinner  the  next  day. 

He  confessed  to  me  once  that  he  regretted 
he  had  played  ill  his  part  in  the  drama  of 
domestic  Ufe.  It  is  true  that  no  member 
of  his  family,  except  his  mother,  will  allow 
you  to  mention  his  name  now.  There  are 
a   few   women   who   look   perplexed   when 


xii         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

they  hear  it,  and  many  who  laugh.  Some 
men  there  are  who  disliked  the  smiling  toler- 
ance I  have  mentioned  above ;  but  those 
who  took  advantage  of  his  real  hiunility  to 
swear  at  and  romp  with  him — perhaps  it 
was  a  higher  pride  that  made  him  allow 
it — were  fond  of  his  society.  People  with 
a  common  reputation  of  being  artistic  re- 
garded him,  I  believe,  with  suspicion,  since 
his  own  devotion  to  art  went  far  deeper 
than  theirs.  Children  bullied  him,  and  he 
was  charming  with  old  ladies. 

The  end  was  dramatic  in  its  swiftness.  A 
little  speech  he  made  to  a  bishop  who  was 
dining  with  his  people  was  taken  in  ill 
part  by  his  father.  He  said  it  was  the  last 
straw,  and  under  cover  of  the  metaphor  sent 
Tubby  away  from  home,  giving  him  but  five 
pounds  a  week  on  which  to  live  his  life. 
The  cruel  injustice  of  his  proceeding  but 
served  to  invigorate  the  spirits  of  my  friend. 


THE  EDITOR'S  APOLOGY  xiii 

He  made  a  noble  effort  to  take  the  vulgar 
burden  of  toil  on  to  his  shoulders.  I  pro- 
cured him  that  beginning  of  a  literary 
career,  a  parcel  of  books  to  review.  But 
his  devotion  to  art  prevented  his  success. 
He  ranged  the  books  on  his  table,  forming 
a  charming  harmony  of  colour,  and  spoke 
of  them  wittily  and  well.  His  review  was 
merely  a  quotation  from  Shelley — 

'  I  looked  on  them  nine  several  days, 
And  then  I  saw  that  they  were  bad.' 

It  was  all  his  self-respect  allowed  him  to 
say  ;  but  they  sent  him  no  more  books.  On 
leaving  home  he  went  into  a  delightful 
little  flat  in  Jermyn  Street,  which  the  friend 
whom  he  calls  Bobby  had  just  left,  and 
gave  Thursday  supper-parties,  at  which  he 
was  an  ideal  host.  But  troubles  came  thick 
upon  him.  His  man  refused  to  wear  a  dress 
which  Tubby  had  spent  many  hours  in  de- 


xiv        AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

signing.     Nobody  would  print  his  poems. 
His  expenditure  exceeded  his  income. 

Finally,  he  accepted  his  father's  proposal 
he  should  go  to  Canada.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  capital  he  has  taken  with  him  will 
serve  him  for  at  least  six  months,  at  the  end 
of  which  we  look  to  see  him  in  our  midst 
again.  G.  S.  S. 


NOTE 

What  follows  has  been  printed,  vnth 
the  exception  of  a  few  pages,  in  the 
'  National  Observer,'  as  it  was  selected 
from  time  to  time,  and  is  reprinted 
by  the  kind  permission  of  that  Journal. 


ALAS! 


I  SHALL  never  forget  the  horror  of  the 
moment  when  I  knew  that  Juliet  loved  me. 
Our  intercourse  had  been  so  pleasant ;  it 
was  hard  that  this  barrier  should  be  raised 
between  us.  Not,  of  course,  that  I  realised 
its  effect  at  once ;  I  confess  to  a  thrill  of 
common  humanity ;  I  believe  I  even  kissed 
her ;  I  know  I  am  only  a  man.  But  the 
rush  of  despondency  was  upon  me  soon : 
my  mind,  before  my  sense,  had  grasped  the 
inevitable  conclusion. 

I  had  worshipped  this  woman.  That 
subtle  delight  which  (I  dare  to  say)  most 
strong  natures  feel  in  yielding  them  captive 
to  a  weaker  had  been  mine  for  several 
months.  I  had  gloried  in  fetching  and 
carrying,  and  smiled  at  my  contentment 
with  her  little  words  of  thanks.     As  I  turn 


4  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

the  pages  of  my  diary  I  find  noted  down 
all  her  rudenesses  and  rebuffs,  and  my 
musings — not  cynical,  but  large-hearted — 
on  the  perversity  of  her  sex.  I  had  grown 
quite  accustomed  to  her  being  unmarried, 
and  was  unreservedly  happy.  And  now  it 
was  all  over ! 

It  was  but  last  Thursday  that,  when  I 
put  my  customary  question,  *  Can  you  not 
love  me  a  little  ? '  instead  of  her  delightful 
*  I  'm  sorry,  but  I  'm  afraid  I  can't,'  she 
hung  her  head  and  stammered,  '  I  don't 
know.'  As  I  have  confessed,  I  was  gratified 
at  first  and  went  through  the  interview  in 
an  orthodox  sort  of  way.  It  was  as  I  sat 
in  the  smoking-room  at  my  club — ^nobody 
seemed  inclined  to  talk  that  night — ^that 
the  ghastliness  of  the  situation  flashed  upon 
me.  If  she  had  been  married,  one  might 
have  found  a  temporary  solution ;  there 
would  have  been  an  experience,  at  least,  in 
the  sordid  notoriety  of  the  Divorce  Court. 
(Ah,  why  did  I  abandon  my  caution,  and 
venture  off  the  track  ?)  Even  then,  how- 
ever, I  knew  that  my  natiu-e  could  never 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  5 

have  supported  a  mutual  passion  for  long. 
To  have  my  every  movement  followed  by 
loving  eyes,  to  be  adored,  and  to  meet  with 
constant  gratitude — it  would  have  bored 
me  to  death.  Still,  I  could  have  risked 
that  and  gone  through  with  the  matter. 
But  an  unmarried  girl !  She  would  expect 
a  proposal  of  marriage.  Me,  engaged  to  be 
married !  Even  in  my  misery  I  smiled  at 
the  idea.  The  inevitable  suggestion  of  the 
'  young  man '  and  the  '  Sunday  out,'  the 
horrible  stereotyped  vulgarities,  the  foolish 
engagement  ring,  the  dreadful  sense  of  being 
imprisoned,  the  constant  necessity  of  leav- 
ing charming  strangers  to  talk  to  somebody 
you  know  by  heart  (I  thought  of  this  view 
impersonally,  for  I  really  loved  Juliet) — the 
utter  impossibility  of  the  whole  business 
simply  confounded  me,  and  I  could  not 
allow  myself  to  think  of  it.  I  have  never 
affected  a  superiority  over  other  men  in  the 
common  things  of  life,  nor  studied  to  seem 
diiferent  from  them,  but  this  thing  I  could 
not  face ;  it  would  make  even  me  ridiculous. 
To  marry  in  secret  and  to  go  to  some  re- 


e  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

mote  place  until  the  time  for  congratula- 
tion was  over  was  conceivable.  .  .  .  But  I 
knew  she  would  not ;  no,  no,  some  worthy, 
common  man  was  her  proper  mate  ;  I  was 
not  made  for  constancy.  If  I  pained  her 
now,  it  was  that  she  might  escape  a  greater 
pain  when  her  love  increased  as  mine 
diminished.  So  I  wrote  a  letter  to  Juliet, 
I  will  copy  down  her  answer,  for  it  seems 
an  indication  of  a  curiously  frequent  phase 
in  women.  '  Dear  Harry,'  she  wrote,  '  you 
are  delightful !  I  hoped  that  Thursday 
would  lead  to  some  agreeable  variety  in  the 
monotonous  course  of  yoiu*  foolishness,  but 
I  never  expected  anything  quite  so  delicious 
as  your  letter.  Of  course  I  knew  before  it 
arrived  that  your  protestations  meant  no- 
thing, or  I  should  not  have  acted  as  I  did. 
Your  idea  of  "  sparing  me  future  pain  "  is 
most  amusing,  and  I  cannot  be  angry  with 
you.  You  can  hardly  think  I  need 
apologise  for  humbugging  you  on  Thurs- 
day ;  your  vanity  made  it  so  absurdly  easy. 
If  you  would  do  some  honest  work,  and 
acquire  an  elementary  sense  of  humour,  you 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  7 

would  be  quite  a  nice  boy.     You  see  I  am 
very  indulgently  yours,  J.  C."* 

Ah,  the  vanity  of  women,  and  the  pains 
they  are  at  to  save  it !  I  fear  she  must 
have  suffered  keenly  to  deceive  herself  (or 
to  try  to  deceive  me)  so  grossly.  Poor 
child,  poor  child ! 


THE    OLD    GENERATION 


It  seems  worth  the  pains  to  make  a  note  of 
my  experience  of  to-day ;  for  though  it  is 
trivial  as  regards  my  history,  there  is  some 
instruction  in  this  contact  of  a  worthy, 
middle-aged  pedagogue,  with  his  curious 
narrowness  of  outlook  and  mediocre  in- 
telligence, and  one  like  myself. 

Even  all  those  years  ago,  at  school,  I 
think  that  I  differed  from  the  others  in 
seeing  the  excellent  creature  as  he  was. 
To  some  few  he  was  of  course  the  Doctor, 
a  subject  for  abuse,  but  not  for  detailed 
criticism  ;  to  others  he  was  a  kindly  superior 
or  a  great  scholar;  to  me  he  was  simply 
John  Herbert  Baxter,  a  poor  human  engine, 
striving  with  imperfect  powers  to  do  what 
an  uninstructed  habit  of  mind  told  him 
was  his  duty,  a  man  of  some  reading  doubt- 


12  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

less,  and  a  distinct  ability  for  organisation, 
as  impartial  as  his  prejudices — those  queer, 
unlovely  prejudices  ! — allowed  ;  one  who, 
Heaven  help  the  poor  fellow,  had  never 
lived.  As  for  his  scholarship,  such  a  stamp 
as  University  honours  might  put  on  a  man 
was  his,  but  even  then  I  was  more  exigent 
in  that  matter  and  saw  no  trace  in  him  of 
a  comprehension  of  the  Greek  spirit;  it 
is  true  I  was  never  in  the  sixth,  and  so 
had  no  close  observation  of  the  result  of 
his  reading,  but  I  often  listened  to  his 
sermons  in  the  chapel.  I  used  to  try  to 
cultivate  him  in  those  days,  and  took  an 
interest,  a  weary  interest,  perhaps,  in  his 
wife :  poor  dear,  she  was  a  sweet  person  in 
many  ways.  When  the  ruptiu-e  came,  and 
his  ridiculous,  natural  prejudices  and  absurd 
reverence  for  his  silly  rules  inflicted  an 
agreeable  but  undoubted  injury  upon  me, 
and  we  parted,  as  I  thought,  for  ever,  my 
judgment  of  him  was  unaltered ;  I  felt  as 
some  Charles  the  First  towards  his  execu- 
tioner, and  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to 
praise  while  I  pitied  him.     So  when  we  met 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  13 

to-day  there  was  no  malice  in  my  mind, 
and  I  was  ready  to  observe  kindly  this 
specimen  of  a  class  that  I  have  passed,  as 
it  were,  in  the  race  of  development. 

I  recognised  him  at  once  when  he  came 
into  my  railway  carriage  (we  were  alone  in 
it),  and  I  smiled  at  him  as  he  sat  down 
opposite  to  me.  As  I  expected,  after  greet- 
ing me,  his  first  question  was:  *What  are 
you  doing  now?""  To  explain  the  folly  of 
it  would  have  been  to  explain  a  philosophy 
quite. unknown  to  him;  so  I  merely  waved 
my  hands,  and  inquired  about  his  wife, 
calling  her  dear  lady,  as  indeed  she  was. 
He  answered  stiffly,  and  I  saw  he  remem- 
bered our  ridiculous  quarrel.  But  I  wished 
to  have  some  profit  from  this  encounter, 
and  even  hoped  he  might  go  from  it  a 
fresher  and  more  clearly  thinking  man, 
and  therefore  I  tried,  with  gently  search- 
ing questions,  to  draw  him  out  about  his 
work  and  its  effects  upon  his  mind.  His 
answers  told  me  more  than  he  (with  that 
bluff  defensiveness  which  marks  the  national 
character  in  the  rough,  and  is  so  sad  a  com- 


14  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

ment  on  our  egotism)  intended  that  they 
should,  and  the  gulf  between  us  seemed 
indeed  impassable.  I  felt  myself  half  angry 
at  this  imprisonment  of  an  intellect  I  knew 
to  be  fairly  capable,  but  also  sorrowful — 
sorrowful  almost  to  tears.  At  length  our 
conversation  came  to  this.  He  said  to  me : 
*  You  spoke  just  now  of  "the  elect."  May 
I  ask  if  you  are  one  of  them,  and  if  so,  who 
elected  you  and  for  what  purpose  ? '  I  have 
a  habit,  when  rude  or  sarcastic  questions  are 
addressed  to  me,  of  looking  at  the  questioner 
with  half-closed  lids.  It  seemed  to  irritate 
the  poor  Doctor,  and  he  asked  me  angrily  if 
I  were  going  to  sleep.  This  gave  me  ani- 
mation to  speak  plainly,  and  risking  his 
affection  for  me  I  determined  to  throw  a 
rope  to  this  poor  ignorant  swimmer.  'I 
am  elected,'  I  said  smiling,  '  to  try  to  show 
you  how  inadequate  are  the  ideas  implied 
by  your  remarks;  to  restore  to  you  what 
might  have  been.  We  have  been  talking 
for  some  time  with  a  wall  between  us;  I 
want  you  to  scale  it.  I  may  seem  to  pre- 
sume on  too   slight   an   acquaintance,  but 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  16 

from  boyhood  you  have  interested  me. 
Baxter,'  I  said,  leaning  forward  and  tap- 
ping him  on  the  knee,  and  speaking  fami- 
liarly, as  to  an  equal,  '  Baxter,  do  you  never 
feel  that  your  life  is  wasted  ?  It  is  wholly 
spent  in  fulfilling  a  mechanical  function 
that  himdreds  of  others  would  fulfil  as 
well  as  you.  Doctrinal  prejudices  shut 
you  off  from  the  joy  of  untrammelled 
thinking,  moral  prejudices  from  the  joy 
of  untrammelled  living.  Believe  me  both 
sorts  are  foolish,  and  they  are  so  dull. 
You  munch  the  dry  bones  of  life ;  the 
taste  and  the  colour  of  it  might  not  exist 
for  you.  Be  one  of  us;  perform,  if  you 
must,  the  vulgar  duties  of  your  calling, 
but  perform  them  with  your  mind  set  on 
what  is  fine  and  rare.  Rouse  yourself.  .  .  .' 
Alas !  He  interrupted  me.  '  I  suppose,' 
he  said,  'there  are  people  who  think  this 
sort  of  thing  amusing,  but  I  think  it  grossly 
impertinent.  But  I  won't  resent  it,  as  I 
might.  You  used  to  be  a  fool,  and  now 
you  are  a  mass  of  conceit  as  well,  and  seem  to 
be  fast  losing  your  manners.    Probably,  what 


16  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

little  brains  you  have  will  go  with  them. 
It 's  a  waste  of  words,  but  I  may  as  well  tell 
you,  you  are  preparing  for  yourself  a  dis- 
contented manhood  and  a  friendless  old 
age.' 

I  put  down  his  ipsissima  verba,  to  be  a 
standing  warning  to  me  that  I  never  again 
try  to  fight  against  the  perversity  of  his 
generation.  It  is  all  very  sad  and  terribly 
disappointing.  But  the  lesson  is  useful :  we 
must  live  our  lives  and  beware  of  altruism. 
I  wished  to  be  of  service  to  this  foolish 
brother,  but  after  all  I  was  not  his  keeper. 


*  BREATHE  CLOSE  UPON  THE  ASHES 


My  host  and  I  were  left  alone,  and  presently 
he  went  yawning  to  bed.  I  took  a  volume 
from  the  shelves  at  random,  stretched  my 
feet  to  the  fire,  and  enjoyed  the  luxury  of 
sorrowful  retrospect.  So  we  had  met  again. 
Romantic  !  A  beautiful  woman,  certainly, 
but  what  things  we  read  into  them  when  a 
mere  passing  affection — like  a  cold  or  the 
gout — ^has  possession  of  us.  Yet  I  had  not 
been  deceived ;  she  was  very  beautiful. 
But  her  gaiety  and  ease  annoyed  me ;  a 
wistful  timidity  of  manner,  and  in  place  of 
her  abundant  health  a  worn  and  wasted 
appearance  would  have  been  more  seemly. 
She  must — I  said  to  myself — be  tired  of 
her  unlovely  mediocrity  by  this  time,  because 
or  though  he  seemed  to  treat  her  well.  Once 
bit  was  twice  shy,  but  I  was  not  assured  of  it. 


20  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

It  was  well  for  some  things  to  be  middle- 
aged,  but,  ah  !  le  heau  temps  .  .  .  !  Then 
the  door  opened,  and  she  came  in  most 
naturally,  in  a  wondrous  dark  dressing- 
gown,  the  sleeves  turned  up  with  white 
silk :  her  hands  were  always  perfect.  The 
following  is  an  exact  account  of  this  critical 
interview,  as  far  as  my  memory  serves  me. 

'  I  was  with  Nora  in  her  room,  and  her 
husband  said  at  the  door  he  had  left  you 
alone.  So  I  thought  I  would  go  and  talk 
to  you.' 

She  was  perfectly  calm,  and  I  answered 
coldly :  '  It  is  very  good  of  you.  Do  you 
mind  my  smoking  ? ' 

*  Do  I  mind  ...  I  thought  you  might 
like  to  talk  to  me  :  we  go  away  to-morrow. 
You  did  once,  I  think.' 

The  complacent  smile  in  her  untroubled 
face  irritated  me  exceedingly.  '  It  is  always 
charming  to  talk  to  you.' 

*  Harry,  have  you  not  forgiven  me  ^ '  Her 
confidence  was  purely  outrageous.  *What,' 
I  asked,  '  do  you  think  I  have  to  forgive  in 
you  ^ '     *  Oh,'  she  replied,  without  the  least 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  21 

sign  of  contrition ;  '  I  think  perhaps  I  was 
rather  unkind  to  you.  I  did  not  know  you 
were  so  much  in  earnest.'' 

'  If,'  I  rejoined,  and  I  felt  my  opening  was 
clear — '  If  you  wish  me  to  tell  you  frankly 
what  I  think  I  have  to  forgive,  it  is  that  you 
made  life  a  simple  hell  to  me  for  weeks. 
Good  God,  how  I  suffered  ! '' 

'  You  are  growing  terribly  stout,  Harry."" 

*  No,'  I  said  sternly,  '  I  can't  laugh  it  off. 
I  don't  wish  to  talk  about  it.  Let  us  change 
the  subject.'  '  Oh  dear,'  she  said,  and  I  felt 
it  useless  to  strive  against  her  levity  ;  *  you 
are  as  bad  as  ever.  Harry,  I  want  to  be 
friends.'  She  held  out  her  hand.  As  I 
said,  it  was  a  very  pretty  hand,  and  I  held 
it  dubiously  a  moment.  Then  I  shook  it 
conventionally,  and  somehow  it  was  I,  and 
not  she,  who  looked  supremely  ridiculous. 
She  smiled  more  provokingly  than  ever. 

'  How  is  the  world  treating  you,  Harry  ? ' 

*  All  right,  thank  you.'  I  was  quite  un- 
concerned now.  '  Have  you  been  here  long  ? 
I  always  think  it  the  pleasantest  house  I 
know.' 


22         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

'  Only  a  week,'  she  replied,  *  and  we  leave 
to-morrow.  My  husband  is  never  happy 
away  from  home.' 

*  Isn't  he  ? '  I  said.  '  I  'm  never  happy  any- 
where ! ' 

The  childish  sentimentality  of  it !  I 
nearly  choked  with  anger  at  my  folly.  She 
was  clearly  gratified.  She  said  softly,  *  I  wish 
I  could  help  you  to  be  happy ;  I  would  do 
almost  anything  to  make  you  so.'  She  looked 
appealingly.  I  felt  the  blood  quick  in  me. 
I  leaned  forward  and  held  one  of  her  hands. 
'  Gwen,  you  can  help  me.  You  can  make 
me  very  happy.     If  you  knew  how  I  loved 

you '     She  laid  the  other  hand  on 

my  head,  very  lightly.  I  felt  I  was  tremb- 
ling when  I  heard  her  voice.  '  My  poor 
boy,  I  will  be  an  elder  sister  to  you.' 

I  looked  up  :  she  was  smiling  with  the 
air  of  an  affable  angel.  I  could  have  sworn 
at  her.  '  I  don't  want  a  sister.'  She  dis- 
engaged her  hand.  'You  tortured  me  once ; 
you  can  make  me  amends  a  thousand  times, 

if '     *  If  what  .f"     *  If  you  will  accept, 

really  accept  my  love,  if  .  .  .  .'     She  had 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  23 

risen  to  her  feet.  '  It  is  very  late ;  I  must 
go  to  bed.  Good-night.'  She  was  gone 
with  her  last  word. 

I  considered  the  alternatives.  If  her  idea 
had  been  to  amuse  herself  with  the  sight  of 
a  renewed  but  discreet  passion,  to  keep  me 
her  lowly  worshipper  for  ever,  I  was  glad  of 
the  result.  But  if  she  had  meant  in  good 
faith  to  make  an  advance  to  intimacy  again, 
to  atone  for  what  was  past,  I  feared  I  had 
been  a  little  unamiable.  This  became  a 
conviction,  and  I  was  eager  to  apologise. 
I  spoke  with  her  the  next  day  for  a  minute 
apart  as  she  went  through  the  hall  to  dress 
for  her  departure.  '  I  have  thought,"'  I 
said,  '  about  our  conversation  last  night,  and 
I  wish  to  thank  you.'  '  Last  night  ? '  She 
looked  straight  at  me.  *  You  forget  I  had 
gone  to  bed  when  you  came  into  the  draw- 
ing-room. Nora !  Harry  says  he  saw  a 
vision  or  something  in  the  library  last  night. 
You  must  make  him  write  a  story  about  it.' 
Did  I  hear  her  laugh  as  she  went  upstairs  ? 


YOUNG  ENGLAND 


SoMETnrEs  I  am  concerned,  thinking  of  my 
contemporaries — those,  I  mean,  who  are  not 
of  Us,  and  are  yet  from  the  accidents  of  life 
more  or  less  my  intimates.  I  mean  those 
frank  young  barbarians  who  were  some  of 
my  comrades  at  school  and  at  Oxford,  or 
from  family  or  other  ties  familiar  to  me, 
whom  I  meet  at  my  barbarian  club  (as  I 
call  it),  or  at  dinners  or  coimtry  houses,  who, 
knowing  that  I  am  young  in  mere  years, 
and  seeing  that  I  take  a  part  in  their  con- 
versation, think  me  one  of  themselves.  In 
truth,  I  find  it  restful  to  listen  to  their 
simple,  homely  talk,  even  to  share  their 
kindly,  honest  pleasures.  I  like  to  see  their 
fresh  young  faces  sparkle  with  merriment, 
as  I  suit  some  piece  of  simple  irony  to  their 
comprehension*  to  watch  their  pathetic  (is 


28  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

it  not  ?)  appreciation  of  their  little  successes 
in  love  and  sport.  Yet  often,  as  I  sit  listen- 
ing to  their  prattle,  I  feel  wistful,  thinking 
of  what  I  have  lost  to  gain  my  difference 
from  them,  wistful  and  almost  regretful ;  I 
feel  old,  so  old,  sad,  and  very  weary.  I 
have  eaten  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge,  or 
rather  of  Thought,  and  lo !  it  is  bitter  in 
my  mouth.  But  these  are  not  the  reflec- 
tions I  intended  to  make :  I  have  chosen  my 
part ;  le  jeu  est  fait  ...  I  was  saying  I  am 
sometimes  concerned  when  I  think  of  my 
contemporaries.  It  is  not  that  I  feel  I 
neglect  any  duty  of  making  them  even  as 
myself.  The  poor  Doctor  was  warning  of 
that  futility :  and  moreover  these  young 
lives  are  better  as  they  are.  Should  I  cloud 
their  unsophisticated  happiness  with  ques- 
tions they  can  never  answer,  with  doubts 
they  can  never  solve .?  Ah,  no  indeed.  Not 
from  heaven,  as  the  poet  feigned,  came  the 
precept  *Know  thyself.'  But  I  sometimes 
ask  myself :  Is  it  fair .?  I  take  their  all,  as 
it  were,  and  give  them  so  little  of  myself. 
They   open    themselves    to    me  and   keep 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  29 

nothing  back,  while  I  show  them  but  one 
side,  and  an  unimportant  side,  of  my  life 
and  character.  Now,  as  I  would  wish  to  be 
remembered  with  kindness  by  my  fellows,  I 
set  down  in  this  place  my  justification.  It 
shows  how  I  tried  to  be  frank  and  to  leave 
no  possibility  of  suspicion  of  deceit  or  re- 
serve, and  how  it  was  proved  to  me  that  a 
lower  cannot  grasp  a  higher  mind,  and  is 
in  fact  impatient  of  its  existence,  so  that 
one  may  fairly  give  his  comrades  only  what 
they  are  fitted  to  receive.  So  far  as  my 
memory  serves  me,  I  set  down  the  incident 
exactly  as  it  occurred,  even  to  the  curious 
and  sometimes  coarse  dialect  of  my  young 
friend. 

I  was  arranging  my  room  after  breakfast, 
repairing  the  ungracious  stiffness  which  is 
always  the  beginning  of  the  trials  of  my 
day,  when  it  struck  me  that  my  new  rug 
matched  ill  with  my  smoking  suit.  The 
better  to  test  it  I  had  sat  down  on  the  floor, 
when  the  door  was  flung  violently  open, 
and  a  needlessly  loud  voice  proclaimed  a 
typical  barbarian.     '  Hullo,  Tubby,  as  bad 


30  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

as  all  that?''  It  was  not  the  meaningless 
nickname  that  distressed  me :  I  permit  it 
for  its  obvious  affection.  But  my  nerves 
are  not  what  they  were,  and  I  felt  helpless 
as  I  watched  him  hang  his  hat  on  my  little 
Ganymede,  and  pull — so  irrationally — the 
chair  I  call  my  Lady's  Chair  from  the  spot 
where  long  thought  had  placed  it,  and  fill 
the  room  with  the  smoke  of  his  cigar  :  I  had 
denied  myself  a  cigarette  for  my  roses'  sake. 
He  was  a  dear  creature,  but  he  was  the 
World,  which  had  stormed  my  little  fort  of 
individuality.  My  cat  came  purring  to 
comfort  me,  and  I  took  courage  to  say  what 
was  on  my  mind.  '  Sit  down,  Frank,'  I 
said;  *I  have  something  to  say  to  you.' 
'Look  here.  Tubby,  I  want  you  to  come 
racing.'  Racing,  racing !  How  dear  and 
how  distant  it  all  was !  '  Ah,  Frank,'  I 
said,  *when  you  have  heard  me  you  will 
imderstand  why  I  cannot  go  with  you ' — for 
to  the  dust  and  the  noise  of  a  racecourse  I 
can  no  longer  accommodate  myself.  'Not 
bad  news,  old  man .'' '  His  sjnnpathy 
touched  me ;  I  rose  and  looked  down  at  him 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  31 

sadly.  '  I  fear  it  will  be  so  to  you/  Then 
I  thought  I  would  prepare  him,  and  going 
to  the  table,  took  from  the  secret  drawer 
my  Ballad  of  Shameful  Kisses.  '  Read  it,'  I 
said  simply.  I  watched  his  face,  but  his 
class  is  trained  to  conceal  emotion,  and  he 
covered  his  with  foolish  jests.  *  Poetry  ! ""  he 
said.  '  Tubby  the  Troubadour  .  .  .  O  Lord  ! 
.  .  .  Thanks  very  much,  old  man ;  I'm  not  a 
good  judge,  but  it  seems  to  rhyme  all  right. 
Rather  steep,  though,  isn't  it  ?  What  you 
might  call  indecent ;  what  ?  But  are  you 
coming  racing  ?'  'I  showed  you  my  Ballad,' 
I  said  slowly,  *  that  you  may  know  what  a 
gulf  there  is  between  us.'  '  You  mean,'  he 
rejoined  with  his  vacant  laugh,  '  that  it 's  a 
record  of  your  experiences.  I  blush  for  you. 
Tubby.  I  think  you're  a  very  wicked 
young  man.  But  will  you  come  racing  or 
not  ? '  '  Frank,  I  beg  your  pardon.  You 
see — do  you  not  ? — that  our  intercourse  has 
been  one-sided.     You  have  told  me  without 

reserve  all  your  life '     '  I'm  damned  if  I 

have,'  the  poor  boy  interrupted  :  but  I  con- 
tinued pitilessly,  *And  I,  my  dear  child, 


32  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

have  lived  a  life  apart,  which  you  can  never 
enter.  Art,  my  poor  Frank  .  .  /  Here  he 
broke  in  with  a  laugh,  and  threw  a  cushion 
at  me,  and  his  horseplay  finally  stopped  me. 
'  Shut  up.  Tubby.  I  give  you  ten  minutes 
to  dress.  As  for  art  and  all  those  sort  of 
things,  if  you  take  my  advice  you'd  chuck 
the  whole  boiling.  It's  all  very  well  for 
some  chaps,  but  it 's  not  in  your  line ;  you 
don't  understand  it,  and  people  laugh  at 
you — I  mean  they  will  laugh  at  you,  don't 
you  know  ?  You  don't  look  like  it ;  you  do 
yourself  too  well,  and  all  that.' 

Poor  Frank  !  I  let  him  have  his  way  and 
we  went  racing  together,  and  I  soothed  his 
jealousy.  I  suppose  he  could  not  under- 
stand why  I  was  so  gentle  with  him  that 
day. 


VARIUM   ET    MUTABILE 


I  COUNT  myself  experienced  in  the  ways  of 
women,  but  I  am  yet  at  a  loss  to  account 
for  the  changes  that  chanced  at  Bramleigh. 
It  is,  by  the  way,  a  pleasant  house,  where 
you  are  sure  to  find,  in  the  midst  of  the 
stupid,  idealess  people  who  are  everywhere, 
one  or  two  poor  spirits  who  have  lived  and 
can  respond.  It  was  there  that,  a  week  ago, 
I  met  Gwendoline  yet  again — did,  in  fact, 
take  her  in  to  dinner  on  the  evening  of  my 
arrival.  I  took  the  liberty  of  an  old  friend 
to  speak  but  little  during  the  essential  part 
of  dinner,  having  little  I  cared  to  say  to  her 
while  a  need  that,  however  dignified  by  art, 
is  yet  animal  was  in  process  of  satisfaction. 
Then  she  rallied  me,  pretending  to  think 
my  silence  a  question  of  preference  for 
material   things   (an    ancient  joke   against 


36  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

me,  at  which  I  can  afford  to  smile),  and 
we  fell  into  the  old  manner.  Neither 
alluded  to  the  past :  we  began,  as  it  were, 
a  new  game;  but  I  saw  she  had  not — as 
how  could  she  have? — forgotten.  A  talk 
in  the  conservatory  cemented,  as  I  thought, 
this  basis  of  intimacy.  But  the  next  morn- 
ing brought  a  change.  She  had  promised 
to  walk  with  me  to  the  Ruin,  and  I  had 
pondered  much  on  my  procedure.  But 
when  she  joined  me  in  the  hall,  it  was 
to  say — as  though  it  were  a  matter  of 
course — 'Charlie  is  coming;  it's  his  first 
visit,  and  he  has  never  seen  it.'  Now  I 
can  bear  with  their  husbands,  poor  dears, 
as  a  rule ;  but  this  creature  is  insufferable, 
a  rude  person,  a  clown.  I  said  rather 
bitterly :  '  I  designed  a  comedy  for  two, 
and  you  have  made  it  a  farce  for  three.' 
She  fro^vned  and  said :  *  Would  you  like  a 
tragedy  for  one  ? '  meaning,  I  suppose,  that 
she  was  afraid.  An  uncivilised  touch  in 
her ;  but,  it  may  be,  some  poor  woman  who 
had  known  me  ...  or  her  stupid  husband 
had  shown  jealousy.     The  walk  was  futile, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  37 

of  course,  and  I  confess  my  irritation  pre- 
vented me  from  condescending  to  his  level, 
and  even  his  piteous  attempts  at  sarcasm 
could  not  move  me  to  relent.  From  that 
time  Gwendolen''s  manner  became  cold,  dis- 
tant, somewhat  stupid,  not  elect.  I  sup- 
posed she  was  adopting  an  immemorial 
device,  and  smiled  at  the  incapacity  for 
change  of  tactics  in  her  sex. 

So  I  turned  myself  to  a  charming  little 
thing  who  was  one  of  the  party.  She  was 
very  pretty,  and  had  little  graceful  move- 
ments and  little  eager  glances  in  her  inno- 
cent blue  eyes.  An  appealing  child  !  And 
she  could  be  taught,  and  took  me  for 
teacher,  and  I  found  the  office  agreeable  for 
a  week.  There  was  a  curious  pleasure  in 
watching  her  wondering  gaze,  as  I  smiled 
away  her  gods  and  illusions  and  showed  her 
a  glimpse  of  what  life  might  be. 

And  then  came  that  atrocious  cricket- 
match.  Bramleigh  was  to  be  matched  with 
some  near  place,  and  the  men  were  con- 
tinually making  lists.  I  like  to  encourage 
these  things :  to  chat  with  a  group  while 


38  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

the  game  is  in  progress,  and  cheer  the 
tedious  affair  with  good-natured  ridicule  of 
the  players,  and  joke  with  them  afterwards 
about  their  feats  and  failures.  This  is,  I 
think,  all  that  can  be  fairly  expected  of  me, 
and  so  when  I  was  asked  to  play,  of  course 
I  laughingly  declined.  On  the  morning  of 
the  game  I  was  watching  a  merry  little 
group  round  Gwendolen,  when  presently  she 
came  to  me  and  begged  me  in  her  sweetest 
manner  to  play  as  a  favour  to  herself.  The 
very  fact  that  she  had  been  unamiable  com- 
pelled me  to  acquiesce,  for  I  had  to  avoid 
any  appearance  of  sulking  (as  of  course  she 
knew),  and  thus  ao  women  gain  their  ends. 
*  Dear  lady,""  I  said,  *  I  can  refuse  you  no- 
thing.' But  I  was  glad  when  I  saw  what 
pleasure  my  complaisance  gave  these  simple 
folk.  Doubtless,  in  some  vague,  dull  way 
they  felt  the  difference  between  us,  and 
were  proud  that  I  should  share  their  sport. 
I  heard  them  say :  '  Tubby  is  going  to  play,"* 
and  laugh  in  gleeful  gratitude.  .  .  .  The 
absurd  mania  for  outdoor  sports  that  afflicts 
this  country,  and  the  ridiculous  importance 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  39 

attached  to  proficiency  in  them,  make  me  a 
little  sad.  They  were,  no  doubt,  sorry  that 
the  accidents  of  the  game  repaid  my  kind- 
ness with  continuous  exertion  and  actual 
physical  pain,  and  it  was  a  charming  thought 
that  prompted  them  to  laugh  at  me  and  say 
I  had  lost  the  match,  by  way  of  giving  me 
the  role  of  culprit — which  is  less  annoying 
than  his  who  forgives.  I  laughed  with 
them,  but  I  was  weary,  and  sought  my 
child  early  that  evening  for  refreshment 
in  her  (I  confess)  pleasant  admiration. 

It  was  an  odd  experience.  My  little 
blue-eyed  disciple  would  no  more  of  my 
teaching;  she  turned  our  converse  to  that 
inane  cricket-match,  and  made  Boeotian  jokes 
at  my  expense.  She  was  utterly  changed, 
no  longer  the  admirer  of  a  master,  but  the 
critic  of  an  equal — nay,  of  an  inferior! — 
that  ignorant  child  of  twenty.  And  yet 
nothing  but  a  silly  game  had  intervened. 
And  Gwendolen  came  to  me  the  next  day, 
before  I  left,  to  make  an  odd  little  speech. 
'Harry,'  she  said,  'I  am  penitent.  I  thought 
you  had  changed,  and  your  conceit** — ah! 


40  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

that  old  tribute  to  wisdom  ! — '  seemed  to 
have  become  genuine  and  not  an  affectation 
any  more.  One  or  two  things  you  said  to 
me  seemed  to  imply  .  .  .  never  mind  !  And 
then  you  were  so  absurd  and  irritating  with 
Charlie.  I  wanted  him  to  like  you,  and  I 
was  very  cross  indeed.  But  I  admired  the 
good-natured  way  in  which  you  made  a  fool 
of  yourself  yesterday,  and  you  stood  our 
chaiF  very  well.  Only,  my  dear  boy,  please 
don't  .  .  .  you  understand  ?  "* 

Yes,  I  think  I  did.  Divested  of  its  odd 
artifices  to  conceal  defeat,  the  little  speech 
was  plain,  and  my  meeting  with  Gwendolen 
in  the  autumn  will  be  interesting.  She 
meant  I  was  not  to  return  her  coldness, 
and  I  can  afford  a  little  magnanimity.  But 
I  am  yet  puzzled  over  the  meaning  of  my 
blue-eyed  child. 


THE    COMMON    CURSE 


To-night  I  have  passed  through  a  crisis,  and 
though  it  was  of  a  sordid  and  undignified 
kind,  and  one  at  which  I  can  already  laugh, 
it  is  fitting;  I  should  record  it.  Thinking;  to 
find  the  house  empty  when  I  came  to  sleep 
a  night  in  it  on  my  way  through  town,  I 
came  upon  my  father  in  the  hall.  He  was 
in  town  on  business,  he  told  me,  having  left 
my  mother  and  sisters  in  the  country.  I 
begged  he  would  not  allow  my  unexpected 
presence  to  keep  him  at  home,  for  I  in- 
tended to  dine  at  the  club.  He  asked  me 
to  dine  with  him  tete-a-tete  at  home.  I  was 
surprised,  for  I  had  always  believed  him  to 
be  a  little  nervous  in  my  society,  although 
I  was  ever  anxious  to  put  him  at  his  ease ;  I 
was  also  somewhat  regretful,  for  in  the  pre- 
sent state  of  the  house  I  could  hardly  expect 


44  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

to  eat  there  with  that  freedom  from  anxiety 
and  irritation  which  is  all  I  require.  But  in 
a  way  I  was  interested.  I  have  never  fallen 
into  the  mistake  of  despising  my  father  be- 
cause he  is  old-fashioned  and  a  little  dull. 
One's  intellect  is  often  tired  and  one  craves 
for  a  contrast,  and  the  dear  fellow's  bluff, 
downright  manner  and  homely  good  sense 
are  often  amusing  and  acceptable.  More- 
over, the  savage  virtues — courage  and  en- 
durance—  of  which  he  has  given  proof 
command  an  instinctive  respect,  and  I  like 
to  feel  I  must  have  them  in  my  blood.  In- 
tellectually, also,  noblesse  oblige.  But  my 
boyish  dream  of  making  him  my  companion 
has  long  gone  the  way  of  all  others.  I  tried 
long  and  patiently,  but  the  verdict  of  the 
balance  was  irresistible.  And  long  and 
patiently  I  tried  to  be  his  companion,  and 
discussed — ah  me,  those  discussions  ! — the 
stupid,  tedious  questions  of  politics  that 
seemingly  sufficed  for  his  mental  food,  but 
the  wolf  of  originality  would  in  spite  of  me 
appear,  as  it  were,  under  my  sheep's  clothing 
of  commonplaceness.      No:    good,   worthy 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  45 

man!  The  conviction  was  sorrowful  but 
sure  that  he  was  better  left  to  his  pohtics 
and  newspapers  and  sport  and  friends — such 
friends ! — and  I  to  my  thoughts  and  my  art. 
Now  and  then  I  have  observed  him  curi- 
ously, ready  to  welcome  any  development, 
but  save  that  increasing  years  render  him 
less  and  less  tolerant  of  what  he  does  not 
understand,  my  father  is  almost  Oriental  in 
his  unchangeableness.  To-night  I  was  ready 
for  a  fresh  inspection. 

Imperturbable  as  I  believe  my  temper  to 
be,  I  could  not  trust  myself  to  speak  during 
dinner.  It  is  idle  to  deny  that  physical 
causes  shape  our  lives,  and  the  thought  of 
how  much  of  my  better  self  must  be  warped 
and  wasted  by  that  ghastly  travesty  of  a 
dinner,  that  criminal  neglect  of  the  most 
elementary  principles  .  .  .  who  knows  what 
bitter  trains  of  thought  and  evil  impulses, 
started  to-night,  may  work  unconsciously  in 
my  brain  and  come  back  upon  me  to  sour 
my  middle  life?  But  when  we  were  left 
alone  over  our  coffee  I  braced  myself  to  talk 
good-humouredly.      '  It 's  a  good  opportu- 


46  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

nity,'  my  excellent  parent  began,  'to  talk 
over  something  seriously  with  you.'  '  Seri- 
ousness always  involves  a  risk,'  I  answered, 
smiling, '  but  if  I  can  help  you  in  any  per- 
plexity .  .  .'  'I  want  to  know  how  long 
this  sort  of  thing's  to  go  on.'  I  smiled 
again  at  his  simplicity.  '  Dismissing  a  de- 
pendant is  an  imgracious  action,'  I  said, 
*  but  surely  not  an  impossible.  I  will  sup- 
port you,  and  I'm  sure  she  cannot  defend 
this  dinner.'  '  Don't  pretend  to  be  a  greater 
fool  than  you  are.  How  long  do  you  pro- 
pose to  loaf  about  town  ?  When  am  I  to 
hear  of  your  earning  some  money.?'  The 
utter  rmreason  and  irrelevancy  of  it  silenced 
me  for  a  moment,  and,  in  fact,  having 
generally  deputed  my  mother  (who  can  bear 
with  his  absurd  humours  more  easily  than  I) 
to  answer  such  questions,  I  was  for  a  mo- 
ment at  a  loss.  He  went  on  :  '  Now,  attend 
to  me,  Harry.'  The  ej^  cathedra  pose  was 
laughable,  dear,  honest  man  !  '  Of  course 
this  reading  for  the  Bar  is  all  humbug. 
Some  day  you  must  earn  your  living.  So 
long  as  I  live  you  can  have  a  home  here. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY         47 

but  if  I  die  your  mother  won't  be  able  to 
keep  you.'  His  robust  health  is  such  a  re- 
proach to  my  poor  overtaxed  nerves  that  I 
could  hardly  feel  his  speech  pathetic,  and 
the  coarseness  of  his  phrases  jarred  painfully. 
I  tried  to  turn  the  conversation  into  a 
general  vein.  'Surely  it  is  a  mistake,'  I 
said,  '  to  be  haunted  by  these  remote  con- 
tingencies. Do  you  know,  I  rather  wonder 
that  a  soldier  like  yourself  is  not  free  from 
it  ?  Of  course  it  is  as  true  as  it  is  obvious 
that  we  must  all  die,  even  so  hale  a  man  as 
you.  "Death  laughs,""'  I  murmured,  half 
to  myself — 

'  "  Death  laughs,  breathing  close  and  relentless 
In  the  nostrils  and  eyelids  of  lust " ' 

*  Never  mind  your  poetry  now,'  he  said,  and 
I  ended  in  a  sigh.  *  This  is  a  question  of 
business.  You  know  I  'm  a  plain,  unculti- 
vated person.'  He  is  somewhat  over-fond 
of  parading  his  ignorance,  but  I  was  fain  to 
re-assure  him,  and  told  him  simply  I  re- 
spected him  none  the  less  on  that  account. 
My  calmness  seemed  to  irritate  him,  and  I 
knew  he  would  say  more  than  he  meant.     I 


48  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

was  never  deficient  in  a  sense  of  humour, 
and  my  amusement  was  fortunate,  for  his 
remark  was  outrageous  :  '  I  intend  that  you 
shall  go  into  a  bank."* 

The  actual  proposition  was  nothing, 
merely  an  idle  expression  of  anger,  though 
the  hideous  picture  called  up  by  my  ima- 
gination was  painful,  and  wiU,  I  fear,  come 
back  to  me.  But  I  felt  that  I  must  deal 
firmly  with  the  situation,  and  prevent  its 
recurrence.  *  You  will  excuse  me,'  I  said, 
'  if  I  do  not  follow  you  into  details.  I  have 
no  right  to  stultify  myself  with  the  me- 
chanical drudgery  you  indicate,  if  it  is 
necessary  to  notice  that  suggestion ;  and, 
by  the  way,  the  law  has  long  ceased  to 
interest  me.  But  you  may  be  at  ease.  I 
have  a  gift  which  may  be  sold  for  silver  and 
gold — the  gift  of  song,  father — though 
nothing  but  the  needs  of  those  dear  to  me 
would  induce  me  to  sell  my  child.  Or  if 
need  be,  I  can  live  on  a  crust  in  an  attic' 
The  good  father  had  pursued  some  train  of 
confused  associations  which  prevented  him 
from   understanding  me,   for  he  said  :  '  If 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY         49 

you  expect  anything  from  your  grandfather, 
you  may  give  that  idea  up.  He  says  he 
prefers  a  fit  of  the  gout  to  listening  to  you.' 
'It  must  be  sad,'  I  said,  'to  witness  the 
mental  decay  of  a  parent;  I  feel  for  you, 
father.  But  I  repeat ;  if  need  be,  I  can  live 
by  my  pen,  live  on  bread  and  water  in  a 
garret.  So  that  is  settled.'  I  glanced  at 
the  clock.  '  It 's  my  belief,  Harry,'  he  said, 
with  a  recognisable  flash  of  uncouth  humour, 
'that  when  you  can't  cadge  any  longer 
you  '11  steal.'  I  thought  it  best  to  indulge 
him  with  a  laugh,  and  to  end  the  interview, 
having  dealt  manfully  with  the  crisis,  and 
being  in  truth  rather  bored. 

'  Where  are  you  going .'' '  he  asked.  He 
may  have  been  sad  that  I  did  not  stay  with 
him,  but  his  absurdity  to-night  deserved  a 
mild  recognition.  '  To  sup  at  the  club,'  I 
answered.  '  Go  to  the  devil ! '  he  said,  the 
dear,  choleric  old-world  father!  A  sordid 
crisis ;  but  I  am  glad  to  have  passed  it. 


'AGAINST    STUPIDITY  .  .  .' 


I  HAVE  never  shared  that  iconoclastic  spirit 
of  ridicule  which  some  of  my  more  thought- 
ful acquaintances  show  towards  the  Church. 
In  truth,  I  take  such  a  spirit  to  be  an  im- 
perfection in  their  culture,  a  sign  that  taste 
is  not  equal  to  intellect,  and  I  profess  I 
would  rather  my  own  mind  were  as  that 
of  an  ordinary  bishop  than  that  my  cul- 
ture should  be  merely  intellectual.  From 
a  purely  aesthetic  point  of  view,  there  is 
much  that  is  acceptable  in  the  Church's 
ritual  and  surroundings.  Why  trouble  about 
the  import  of  her  teachings  ?  I  never  listen 
to  them,  or  merely  smile  when  some  frag- 
ment gf  quaint  dogmatism  breaks  in  on  my 
repose.  But  I  love  to  sit  in  some  old 
cathedral  and  fancy  myself  a  knight  of  the 
middle  ages,  ready  to  die — dear  foolish 
fellow  ! — for  his  simple  faith. 


64         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

But  this  charm  of  mediaevalism  that  I  am 
content  should  excuse  the  existence  of  an 
institution  which,  as  a  thinker,  I  am  forced 
to  pronounce  an  anachronism,  is  so  rudely 
broken  by  individual  clergymen.  I  would 
gladly  listen  if  they  talked  to  me  of  pale, 
piu*e  saints  and  quaint,  ascetic  martyrs,  or 
told  me  of  beautiful,  useless  miracles  which 
they  had  read  of  in  their  curious  lore.  But, 
to  speak  roughly,  I  find  them  painfully 
modern.  Their  fare  should  be  a  manchet 
of  bread  and  a  cup  of  spring  water  ;  as  it  is 
they  join  in  our  lunches  and  dinners.  They 
should  know  nothing  of  what  has  happened 
for  hundreds  of  years ;  I  find  them  inter- 
ested in  all  the  tedious  subjects  which 
oppress  me  in  the  newspapers.  Such  an  one 
is  Fairford,  who  is  staying  in  this  house.  A 
fine  savage,  beyond  question,  tall  and  broad : 
he  '  rowed  stroke '  or  did  something  of  the 
sort  in  my  college  boat  at  Oxford,  and  I 
liked  to  count  this  yoimg  Hercules  one  of  my 
friends — so  strong  and  noble  as  an  animal, 
and  with  all  his  sinews  and  muscles  so  utterly 
my  inferior.      Intellectual,   of  course,   the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  65 

good  fellow  could  never  be  ;  but  what,  from 
my  point  of  view,  absolutely  unfits  him  for 
his  calling  is  his  full-blooded,  hearty  nature. 
I  seek  in  a  clergyman  some  faint  echo  of 
mediaeval  mystery  and  spirituality  ;  I  think 
of  that  and  then  turn  to  this  big,  healthy 
creature  talking  of  cricket  and  agriculture. 
The  contrast  is  comical,  but  yet  annoying  ; 
and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  try  if  I  could 
not  communicate  to  this  honest  Fairford 
some  sense  of  the  true  fitness  of  things. 

My  opportunity  came  to-day  when  I  found 
him  smoking  a  pipe  after  luncheon  in  front 
of  the  house.  A  gentle  stroll  at  this  time 
is  part  of  the  wholesome  discipline  to  which 
I  subject  myself,  and  I  invited  him  to 
accompany  me  as  far  as  the  gate.  '  Fairford,' 
I  began, '  I  want  to  talk  to  you  on  a  subject 
that  demands  some  apology.  You  will 
acquit  me,  I  am  sure,  of  any  wish  to  be  im- 
pertinent, if  I  say  it  is  about  yourself  in 
connection  with  your  profession.'  My  manner 
was  designedly  courtier-like ;  he  answered 
in  his  inappropriate  English  fashion  :  '  All 
right,  fire  away.'     '  Well,  then,'  I  said,  '  my 


66         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

dear  Fairford,  conceive  my  shot  to  be  the 
lightest  of  arrows ;  I  only  wish  to  suggest. 
I  will  not  of  course  speak  to  you  of  your 
faith ;  that  would  be  obtrusive  and  un- 
necessary ;  besides,  in  many  ways  your  faith 
is  charming.  It  is  in  you,  in  the  outward 
Fairford,  that  I  would  like  to  see  some 
difference.  You  have  many  excellent 
qualities,  my  good  Fairford,  but  you  are 
not  mediaeval.'  '  Why  should  I  be  ? '  said 
my  puzzled  friend.  (The  obvious  idea  was 
quite  new  to  him !)  '  Because,'  I  said,  and 
warmed  to  my  task,  '  because,  my  dear, 
good  Fairford,  you  represent  an  institution 
whose  charm  and  meaning  are  that  it  keeps 
the  remote  past  with  us.  In  a  sense  you 
are  past  too  ;  you  are  not  modem  as  I  am 
modern.  But  in  the  ordinary  sense  you  are 
very  modem  indeed.  AVhat  are  your  in- 
terests? you  talk  sport  and  politics  for  all  the 
world  like  my  father ;  you  should  be  twenty 
generations  earlier.  You  laugh ;  you  sing 
great  noisy  songs  ;  you  say  you  would  shoot 
if  you  had  time.  All  that  is  wrong.  You 
should   never   speak    above   a    murmur ;    I 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  67 

think  you  should  not  be  seen  save  in  the 
dimness  of  twilight.' 

I  knew  of  course  he  would  not  argue  with 
me,  and  desired  merely  to  let  my  words  sink 
in.  I  was  even  prepared  for  some  irrelevant 
protestation.  But  I  could  not  have  ima- 
gined the  savage,  animal  outburst  of  un- 
reasoning brute  force  with  which  he  expressed 
his  impotent  disagreement.  Stopping  sud- 
denly, he  said  to  me,  '  Tubby,  do  you 
wrestle  ? '  I  smiled  and  said,  '  Nay,  good 
friend,  I  will  wrestle  with  you  in  argument '  • 
when  he,  appearing  not  to  hear  my  con- 
cluding words,  and  throwing  down  his  pipe, 
sprang  at  me,  grasped  me  with  his  great 
bony  arms,  and  flung  me  to  the  ground  with 
such  violence  that  my  straw  hat  fell  off.  I 
was  hurt  physically ;  my  breath  came  with 
difficulty,  and  I  feared  the  shock  might  have 
injured  my  lungs  ;  it  was  but  a  few  minutes 
after  lunch.  I  looked  up  at  him,  and  he, 
great  hulking  savage,  was  laughing  in 
ignorant,  stupid  triumph.  I  was  on  the 
point  of  addressing  him  with  a  sarcasm 
which  would  have  turned  his  triumph  to 


68  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

defeat,  when  I  heard  feminine  laughter,  and 
my  hostess  and  Gwendolen  came  up. 
*  Hany,"*  said  the  latter,  '  your  beautiful  tie 
is  disarranged  :  what  has  happened  ? '  Fair- 
ford  said  :  *  Tubby  insisted  on  wrestling 
with  the  Church  militant,  and  is  out  of 
training.'  I  remembered  the  attraction 
physical  prowess  has  for  all  women,  even, 
no  doubt,  for  Gwendolen,  and  said  with  a 
laugh :  '  We  must  wrestle  again  when  I  'm 
in  practice,  Fairford.  For  the  present  I 
yield  to  Christian  muscularity. ""  I  looked  at 
Gwendolen  with  a  little  ironical  smile,  and 
she  laughed  again.  After  all,  poor  blunder- 
ing Fairford's  wild-beast-like  resentment  of 
enlightenment  may  not  have  been  amiss. 


LALAGE,   THE   BORE 


I  CANNOT  call  the  heroine  of  last  night  by 
the  name  I  heard;  it  is  inexpressibly  painful 
— like  some  flaunting  jeweller's  shop.  That 
which  of  right  belongs  to  her  is  probably 
far  less  odious,  suggestive,  it  may  be,  of  a 
squalid  and  sordid  life  in  some  dismal, 
monotonous  slum — a  life  that  to  a  spectator 
from  my  own  world  might  have  some 
whimsical  charm  of  contrast  and  be  the  basis 
of  an  odd  romance.  It  might  have  recalled 
Hazlitt  to  my  memory,  and  his  wayward 
erotic  fever.  But  the  name  I  heard  is 
dreadful,  dreadful  in  itself,  and  terribly 
appropriate.  I  will  call  her  Lalage.  Duke 
ridentem!  It  was  indeed  a  clear  laugh, 
coming  across  the  thick  buzz  of  conversa- 
tion and  the  noise  of  knives  and  glasses, 
which  first  induced  me  to  regard  her.     Men 


62         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

act  from  mingled  motives;  even  I  cannot 
always  determine  which  it  was  that  pre- 
dominated in  me.  It  was  so  last  night.  It 
was  partly  no  doubt  the  warmth  and  gaiety 
of  the  little  supper-party,  which  finished  one 
of  those  boyish  evenings  I  now  and  then 
permit  myself;  we  had  been  merry  and 
joyous,  and  I  had  bent  to  the  humour  of 
my  companions  more  than  is  my  wont.  It 
was  partly  that  laugh  which  seemed  so 
pleasant  then. 

But  there  was  another  motive.  I  have 
never  cared  for  the  society  of  Lalage  and 
her  like.  My  reason  is  simple:  they  bore 
me  to  death.  It  is  not  that  they  are  vulgar, 
or  coarse,  or  mercenary.  It  is  that  from 
my  point  of  view  they  are  painfully,  nay, 
shockingly  respectable. 

This  may  sound  a  paradox,  but  it  is  sadly 
true.  Words  are  more  than  hves.  Their 
lives  are  as  they  are;  but  they  appear  to 
keep  intact  the  silly  bourgeois  prejudices  in 
which  they  were  bred.  I  say  to  them  things 
which  some  women  I  know  would  argue 
about  or  smile  at  as  the  case  might  be; 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  63 

those  others  cannot  conceive  that  I  am  seri- 
ous. They  cannot  understand  that  I  do  not 
share  traditional  interpretations  of  right 
and  wrong;  they  insist  tacitly  on  my  re- 
garding myself  as  a  sinner  and  them  as  out- 
casts. Then  again  they  are  snobbish, 
reverencing  accidental  advantages  of  wealth 
and  rank :  some  foolish  companion  richer 
than  I — though  quite  uneducated — has  fre- 
quently been  preferred  to  me.  So  I  avoid 
their  society.  But  this  avoidance  has  often 
been  misunderstood  by  my  friends,  and 
attributed  to  a  foolish  morality  at  which  I 
should  be  the  first  to  blush.  And  last  night 
they  sported  with  my  reluctance  until  I  was 
grieved,  and  so  I  was  introduced  to  Lalage. 
Ah  !  how  unspeakably  tedious  she  was  ! 
I  had  hoped  for  a  moment  to  find  her  a 
Faustine,  or  at  least  with  something  of 
Herodias**  daughter.  She  was  merely  a  re- 
spectable Cockney  playing  truant.  I  wanted 
her  to  be  wild  and  wicked  and  abandoned, 
and  she  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  was 
inclined  to  be  free  and  gay  ;  the  vapid 
vulgarity  with  which  she  joked  with  Bobby, 


64         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

who  introduced  us,  sobered  me  at  once.  As 
I  took  my  seat  in  the  little  brougham  I  felt 
I  was  going  to  execution.  Her  prettiness 
was  fast  ebbing  away.  '  I  like  Bobby,'  she 
began ;  '  he  ""s  a  great  swell,  isn''t  he  ? 
Hasn't  he  a  chance  of  being  a  duke  ? '  I 
saw  her  drift  and  answered  decisively :  '  I 
trust  not.  Most  dukes  are  middle-class, 
and  Bobby  might  be  absorbed.'  She  stared, 
and  said  :  *  What  a  funny  old  thing  you 
are  ! '  I  looked  out  of  the  window.  '  Give 
me  a  cigarette,'  she  said  next ;  '  I  'm  longing 
to  smoke.  I  didn't  smoke  in  there  ;  I  don't 
think  ladies  ought  to  in  public,  do  you  ? ' 
I  groaned,  and  she  said  :  '  Cheer  up,  dear 
boy.'  '  Child,'  I  said,  '  let  us  forget  the 
world  and  its  conventions;  let  us  be  joyous 
and  free.  Let  us  think  we  are  Greeks  of 
old,  before  cold  ascetics  came  to  cloud  the 

lives  of  men.     Let  us .'     *  This  beastly 

cigarette  ash  has  fallen  on  my  cloak,'  she 
interrupted ;  *  brush  it  off ! '  I  was  silent 
awhile,  and  then  she  called  my  attention  to 
the  merits  of  the  brougham  and  told  me 
how  much  she  had  to  pay  for  it.     I  tried 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  66 

desperately  to  enjoy  the  situation.  I  looked 
at  Lalage ;  decidedly  she  was  pretty  no 
longer.  And  then  I  shuddered  when  I  re- 
membered how  the  brand  of  champagne  we 
had  drunk  was  chosen  against  my  advice. 
Yes  ;  I  had  indigestion.  And  then  suddenly 
the  thought  of  Gwendolen  came  to  com- 
plete my  discomfiture.  It  was  utterly 
Philistine  and  commonplace  that  the 
thought  of  her  should  make  me  dishke  my 
position ;  I  hated  myself  for  it,  but  so  it 
was.  On  a  sudden  impulse  I  stopped  the 
brougham,  explained  that  I  was  ill,  and 
fotmd  means  to  appease  Lalage's  anger. 
For  a  moment  as  I  strolled  home  I  thought 
that  perhaps  my  companions  were  right  in 
a  sense,  and  some  idiotic  principle  I  had 
learned  in  childhood  had  unconsciously  re- 
strained me.  I  felt  guiltily  moral  and 
utterly  dejected.  Then  I  remembered  that 
Rossetti  had  acted  much  as  I  had  done, 
though  perhaps  our  points  of  view  were 
different. 


A   VICTORY    OVER    SELF 


'  My  dear  Harry,  I  was  very  angry  when  1 
read  your  letter.  You  must  have  been  mad 
to  write  to  me  hke  that.  It  shows  that  you 
utterly  failed  to  understand  what  I  meant 
at  Bramleigh,  and  it  is  just  that — the  sort 
of  thing  your  letter  is  full  of,  I  mean — 
which  makes  it  impossible  to  keep  up  our 
old  friendship.  I  am  so  very,  very  sorry, 
I  liked  you  so  much — we  used  to  have  such 
good  fun  together.  These  horrid  new  ideas 
of  yours  have  quite  spoiled  you.  Once  and 
for  all,  Harry,  I  can't  allow  you  to  talk  or 
write  to  me  as  you  have  been  doing.  How 
far  it  is  real,  and  how  far  you  think  it  clever 
or  something,  I  don"'t  know ;  in  any  case,  I 
think  it  bad  taste.    Oh  dear !   Do  be  sensible, 


70         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

Harry,  and  say  you  are  sorry,  and  don't 
do  it  again,  and  please  very  much  yours, 
Gwendolen.  P.S. — You  see,  I  can't  forget 
your  mother  is  like  my  elder  sister.  P. P.S. 
— Charlie  saw  your  letter.  I  am  sorry,  be- 
cause I  know  you  did  not  mean  an3rthing, 
and  he  doesn't  understand  quite,  and  says 
he  is  going  to  speak  to  you  about  it.  He 
is  going  to  town  to-day.  You  must  not 
quarrel  with  him;  you  know  he  is  rather 
quick-tempered.' 

I  think  I  read  this  curious  document  of 
femininity  a  dozen  times.  I  copy  it  down, 
for  it  explains  my  forbearance  with  the 
absurd  Charlie.  It  was  the  postscript  which 
troubled  me.  I  conceived  the  worthy  man 
would  have  understood  my  letter  to  his 
wife  as  a  bull  imderstands  a  red  rag.  I 
have  never  thought  it  part  of  my  role  to 
dislike  the  intractable  thing;  it  is  not  my 
fault  that  he  is  personally  all  that  is  bour- 
geois and  hopeless.  As  for  Gwendolen,  I 
believe  she  was  made  to  write  that  foolish 
letter,  and  I  smiled  as  I  saw  how  her  de- 
sire to  be  appreciative  struggled  with  the 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  71 

commands  of  her  preposterous  husband.  For 
her  sake  I  determined  to  control  my  temper, 
which  I  knew  to  be  naturally  sarcastic,  if 
we  should  meet.  But  I  thought  it  wiser 
to  avoid  a  scene  of  silly  recrimination  alto- 
gether, and  gave  orders  that  I  was  not  at 
home  to  him,  and  when  I  saw  him  coming 
towards  me  this  morning  in  Piccadilly — ^he 
ought  to  have  been  killing  things  miles 
away  ! — I  took  a  cab.  All  this  trouble  for 
a  woman !  But  as  I  passed  him  with  his 
inane,  important  swagger  and  his  great  red 
face,  I  was  glad  I  had  escaped  the  infliction 
of  conversing  with  him. 

But  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
my  benevolent  intentions.  When  I  went 
this  afternoon  to  call  on  the  only  woman 
in  London,  he  was  in  the  room,  and  alone. 
After  all,  if  I  had  to  meet  him  it  was  well 
to  do  so  thus ;  he  could  hardly  make  a  very 
vulgar  or  violent  display  in  the  house  of  a 
woman  who  might  come  in  at  any  moment. 
He  looked  so  agricultural  and  uncomfort- 
able that  I  rather  pitied  him,  but  could  not 
deny  myself  the  amusement  of  treating  him 


72        AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

as  a  man  of  the  world.  '  Oh ! ''  he  said,  *  I 
wanted  to  see  you.  I  happened  to  see 
a  letter  you  wrote  to  Gwendolen.'  I  sat 
down  and  (I  hope)  regarded  him  com- 
placently. '  Look  here ! '  he  went  on  in 
his  irritating,  jerky  manner,  'it  may  be 
cursedly  clever  and  all  that,  but  I  object 
to  it.'  '  So  strange,'  I  murmured.  'What  ? ' 
he  said  in  his  thick,  dictatorial  tones.  '  So 
strange,'  I  repeated, '  that  you  should  object, 
who  are  her  husband.  If  you  were  a  man 
who  was  interested  in  her  I  could  under- 
stand. But  I  forgot:  I  think  you  like 
Gwendolen  ? '  '  Like  ? '  he  asked,  and  gave 
me  one  of  his  vacant,  animal  looks.  '  Ah,' 
I  said,  '  that  is  so  refreshing  of  you  !  Most 
of  my  married  acquaintances  loathe  their 
wives."  '  Be  good  enough  to  drop  that 
tone  with  me.'  He  drew  himself  up :  'Of 
course  you  're  only  a  boy,' — I  smiled  at  his 
method  of  retreat, — 'and  you're  an  old 
friend  of  hers,  and  all  that.  But  you've 
annoyed  her,  and  therefore  annoyed  me, 
and  without  wishing  to  be  ridiculous  I 
insist  on  your  ceasing  to  do  so.'     He  was 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  73 

not  without  an  element  of  rude  dignity  as 
he  said  this,  and  I  was  pleased  that  he  was 
not  violent.  I  am  always  the  slave  of  the 
passing  emotion,  and  said  at  once  with 
a  sigh :  '  You  touch  me,  Charles ;  I  will 
spare  her.' 

I  suppose  it  was  the  feeling  that  he  had 
been  outdone  in  courtesy  that  angered  him. 
He  made  a  step  towards  me  frowning  ludi- 
crously. We  both  heard  a  frou-frou  on  the 
stairs,  and  I  remarked  that  our  interesting 
conversation  seemed  to  be  at  an  end.  '  Oh 
no,  it's  not,'  he  said,  'we'll  continue  it 
when  we  go.'  But  I  was  determined  to 
stay  him  out,  and  not  to  give  him  an 
opportunity  to  make  himself  more  absurd 
than  he  had  already.  After  a  while  I  asked 
leave  to  visit  the  schoolroom,  and  spent  an 
hour  there,  dissipating  the  foolish  ideas  and 
superstitions  I  found  the  poor  children  had 
imbibed  from  their  governess.  When  I 
came  down  the  agreeable  Charles  was  gone. 
There  was  a  cab  just  outside  the  house  and 
I  walked  straight  into  it.  It  was  not  too 
soon ;  the  creature  had  actually  been  walk- 


74         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

ing  about  the  square !  Poor  Gwendolen,  to 
be  tied  to  so  dreadful  a  wretch  as  this  ! 
He  swore  vulgarly  as  I  drove  away.  I  was 
bored,  but  rather  amused  on  the  whole. 


DISILLUSIONED 


I  HATE  philanthropists.  Chiefly,  of 
course,  as  a  question  of  principle.  One's 
own  associates  are  monotonous,  on  the 
whole;  they  have  an  air  of  freedom  from 
conventional  restraint,  but  merely  because  it 
is  the  mode,  and  I  often  suspect  the  reality 
of  their  immorality.  Even  those  few  who 
are  the  saving  salt  of  society,  and  with 
whom  the  unloveliness  of  virtue  is  a  matter 
of  course,  Avould,  I  fear,  hang  back  if  I  put 
myself  at  their  head  for  a  career  of  flatmt- 
ing,  beautiful  crime.  I  had  one  hope, 
which  the  philanthropists  have  taken  away. 
I  used  to  hope  in  the  criminal  class,  in  those 
who  have  taken  no  taint  of  respectability  at 
their  births.  They  are  the  patch  of  glorious 
red  in  the  dull  grey  of  our  stupid  civilisa- 
tion— so  absurd  were  it  not  so  pitiful, — and 


78  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

my  blood  boils  when  I  hear  of  these  un- 
speakable philanthropists  pulling  down  hot- 
beds of  vice  and  teaching  helpless  children 
inane  facts  and  antiquated  ideas  of  pro- 
perty. In  my  own  home  I  meet  with  little 
sympathy.  My  father  is  chairman  of  a 
board  or  something,  and  investigates  deserv- 
ing cases.  My  sister,  too,  is  engaged  to  be 
married  to  an  embryo  arch-fiend  of  philan- 
thropy, and  I  am  reminded  that  individually 
and  as  a  question  of  personal  experience,  I 
think  philanthropists  impossible.  I  have  in 
their  society  an  uneasy  feeling  that  they 
find  something  wanting  in  me,  such  a  feel- 
ing as  many  years  ago  I  had  in  the  society 
of  clergymen ;  one  outgrows  dogmas  before 
their  indirect  results,  and  thus  I  may  not  be 
wholly  regenerate  in  this  matter.  Then  if 
you  would  not  be  thought  guilty  of  a  para- 
dox, you  have  constantly  to  applaud  the 
lapse  into  virtue  of  some  amusing  sinner. 
And  they  wiU  suddenly  demand  money,  or 
ask  you  to  share  in  some  preposterous  or 
imcomfortable  expedition. 

But  this  creature  who  is  engaged  to  be 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  79 

married  to  my  sister !  I  shall  never  forget 
how,  when  I  was  a  boy  at  Oxford,  he  per- 
suaded my  easy  nature  to  conduct  a  party 
of  East-enders  over  the  place,  and  give  them 
a  meat-tea  in  my  rooms.  I  had  thought 
they  would  get  drunk  and  sing  songs  in  the 
quad,  but  I  found  them  hopelessly  respect- 
able and  most  exasperatingly  intelligent.  I 
had  to  explain  my  course  of  reading  to 
them,  and  when  I  tried  to  infuse  a  little 
reason  into  their  soulless  and  mission-ridden 
existences  they  thought  I  was  jesting,  and 
when  I  offered  them  brandy  one  of  them 
made  me  a  speech.  And  the  wretch  who 
had  sent  them  wrote  me  a  furious  letter 
when  they  returned.  But  for  his  philan- 
thropy he  would  have  been  a  tolerable 
young  man,  as  young  men  go.  As  it  is,  I 
have  heard  him  described  as  'an  earnest 
fellow,'  and  as  *the  ideal  of  a  Christian 
gentleman,'  than  which  I  can  imagine  no- 
thing more  pompous  and  tiresome  and 
ridiculous.  He  comes  red-handed  from  his 
settlement,  or  whatever  it  is  called,  and 
bores  us  with  accounts  of  the  unfortunate 


80  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

people  he  has  snared  into  his  nets,  much  as 
Gwendolen''s  bucolic  husband  discusses  his 
bag  when  he  has  been  out  shooting. 

One  day  he  induced  me  to  visit  him 
there,  to  take  part  in  a  sort  of  entertain- 
ment. It  meant  dining  in  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon,  but  I  went  because  I  thought  I 
might  meet  members  of  the  criminal  class 
not  wholly  converted.  I  was  disgusted. 
The  people  with  whom  I  was  made  to  play 
chess  reeked  of  virtue — a  coarse  expression 
may  be  pardoned  for  a  shock  of  disillusion, — 
and  one  who  looked  more  promising  than 
the  others,  and  whom  I  asked  to  relate  his 
experiences  as  a  burglar  or  a  pickpocket, 
complained  that  I  had  insulted  him.  It 
ended  in  my  being  practically  turned  out, 
and  the  next  day  my  whole  family  harangued 
me  all  through  lunch. 

I  mention  these  things  that  my  dis- 
appointment of  to-day  may  be  the  better 
understood.  I  thought  at  last  I  was  in 
converse  with  unfettered  criminals.  He  had 
a  big  red  scarf  tied  round  his  neck,  a  pecu- 
liarity I  had  always  associated  with  house- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  81 

breakers,  and  the  woman  with  him  was  so 
neat  that  I  thought  she  must  be  a  decoy. 
The  train  was  full,  and  the  guard  put  them 
into  my  carriage,  apologising.  I  said  I  was 
charmed,  and  at  once  began  to  talk  with 
them.  The  beginning  was  not  easy,  for  he 
seemed  to  resent  being  called  *my  good 
man,'  which  I  had  intended  to  put  him  at 
his  ease,  and  addressed  me  with  a  foolish 
sarcasm  as  '  Yer  rile  'ighness.'  But  they  soon 
thawed.  I  gave  the  man  a  cigar,  and  com- 
plimented the  woman's  bonnet,  and  they  were 
all  smiles.  Then,  being  but  a  few  minutes 
from  my  destination,  I  plunged  in  medias 
res,  and  pronounced  a  eulogy  on  a  hfe  of 
crime.  Perhaps  they  did  not  imderstand 
me  at  first,  for  the  man  said  it  was  'like 
being  in  church,'  but  all  at  once  came  a 
catastrophe.  Something  I  said,  more  par- 
ticularly to  the  woman,  angered  them. 
'  Look  'ere,  mister,'  the  man  said  (the  dialect 
does  not  amuse  me,  but  I  am  told  it  does 
others),  'you  jest  dry  up.  You  may  be  a 
dook,  or  as  near  as  makes  no  bleedin'  differ- 
ence, but  there  ain't  one  of  yer  fine  ladies 
F 


82  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

that 's  better  than  my  old  woman.''  I  had 
no  time  to  comment  on  the  spurious  senti- 
mentality of  his  remark,  and  merely  said 
with  a  pleasant  laugh  :  *  My  worthy  fellow, 
they  are  not  so  good.  They  are  mostly 
tedious  and  respectable.'  Then  they  stormed 
at  me,  the  woman  inciting  the  man  to 
assault  me.  Explanation  was  wasted,  but 
the  question  was  finally  settled  with  what 
he  called  'the  price  of  a  pint.'  We  ex- 
changed commonplaces  awhile,  and  then  I 
became  silent,  and  the  man  produced  a 
Philistine  paper. 

I  suppose  the  criminal  class  does  exist, 
but  I  despair  of  meeting  with  it. 


A    FEMININE    QUESTION 


I  HAVE  acquired  a  very  subtle  understanding 
of  woman,  and  the  mistakes  of  my  boyhood 
are  quite  impossible  to  me  now.  I  can  play 
upon  her  as  upon  an  instrument  of  music, 
and  smile  as  I  touch  the  keys.  But  the 
smile  is  a  little  sad,  for  there  was  a  romance 
in  that  strange,  passionate  discord  I  made 
once,  which  is  gone.  My  case  is  the  reverse 
of  Byron's,  who  said  he  wished  to  love 
thougli  he  was  no  more  beloved  in  turn: 
there  are  still  young  eyes  that  look  wistfully 
on  mine,  but  my  love-making  is  over.  '  No 
more  on  me  the  freshness  of  the  heart  can 
fall  hke  dew ' — how  curious  it  all  is  !  Did 
Nature  keep  pace  with  thought  my  hair 
would  long  ago  have  been  grey. 

Some  such  mournful  reflections  were  run- 
ning in  my  head  this  afternoon  when  Hughy 


86         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

introduced  me  to  his  cousin.  She  seemed  a 
mirthful,  frank  young  creature,  and  I  know 
how  strong,  often  how  sad,  an  attraction 
there  is  for  such  gay,  hopeful  spirits  in  my 
own  world-weary  melancholy.  I  thought  I 
too  would  be  light  and  gay,  and  make  no 
sinister  impression  on  her  sunny  existence. 
It  was  an  extraordinary  experience.  She 
was  quite  different  from  other  women,  a 
lusus  naturae.  There  was  none  of  that 
charming  inconsequence  to  which  I  am  ac- 
customed, especially  in  philosophical  women. 
She  was  literal  and  logicaL  I  was  so  ab- 
solutely unprepared  for  it  that  possibly  I 
failed  to  show  her  how  foolish  a  thing  logic 
is  in  the  face  of  that  deeper  insight  whicli 
comes  from  life's  experience. 

She  began  by  quoting  some  foolish  ques- 
tion Hughy  had  just  put  to  her,  showing 
the  poor  fellow's  complete  lack  of  all  read- 
ing. 'Ah,'  I  said  gaily,  'to  be  in  the 
Guards  covers  a  multitude  of  ignorances : 
Hughy  looks  sweet  in  his  timic.  You  must 
not  expect  too  much ! '  'I  expect,'  she 
answered,  'a  great  deal  of  you,  because  he 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  87 

says  you're  very  philosophical.  I  want  so 
much  somebody  to  explain  to  me  this  theory 
of .'  She  mentioned  some  horrid  Ger- 
man name  which  I  had  never  heard.  I  do 
not  attempt  to  follow  all  the  vagaries  of 
modem  philosophy ;  there  are  so  many 
things  to  do  in  life,  and  mere  book-learn- 
ing is  so  futile.  I  do  not  at  all  value  my 
reputation  for  philosophy,  which  is  surely 
seciu'e  with  those  who  can  discriminate,  but 
I  thought  it  a  social  duty  to  continue 
the  subject  this  pedantic  girl  had  chosen. 
'^ Which  theory?'  I  asked  her.  She  told 
me ;  there  was  nothing  charming  in  it,  and 
I  have  forgotten  it  now.  *  It  is  not  worth 
explaining,'  I  said;  'what  germ  of  truth 
there  is  in  it  simply  amounts  to  the  only 
practical  outcome  of  all  sound  philosophy.' 
'  What  is  that  ? '  she  asked  me,  smiling  for 
some  reason,  thinking  perhaps  I  would  make 
some  silly  joke,  as  Hughy  would.  *  It  is,'  I 
said,  folding  my  hands  and  speaking  slowly, 
'  that  you  must  live  your  life.' 

There  was  never  such  a  literal  and  per- 
sistent girl.     She  caught  me  up   at  once. 


88         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

'  Surely  that  is  obvious :  of  course  I  must 
live  my  life.''  '  Obvious  indeed,""  I  said  sadly, 
'  but  how  difficult ! '  '  But  what  do  you 
mean  ?  You  might  as  well  say  I  must  dine 
on  my  dinner.'  A  hopeless  girl,  but  I  tried 
to  make  her  see  a  minute  particle  of  my 
meaning.  'I  mean  you  must  be  free  and 
joyous,  not  tyrannised  over  by  foolish  dogmas 
of  altruism,  but  fulfilling  your  own  instincts 
and  desires. ■"  'Do  just  what  I  please.?  Be 
thoroughly  selfish .?  But  that  wouldn't  be 
mi/  life.  Why  should  you  say  that  is 
more  my  life  than  acting  naturally,  as  one 
is  accustomed  to  act  ?  One  has  certain  in- 
herited tendencies ' — I  smiled  at  the  foolish 
catchword — '  and  education  forms  them  into 
habits,  and  one's  natural  hfe  is  to  act  as 
they  direct.'  '  Dear  lady,'  I  said,  desperately, 
'  don't  let  us  quarrel  about  it.  When  you 
have  had  my  experience  you  will  see  what  a 
beautiful  thing  egotism  is.  Then  you  will 
live  your  life;  until  then  not.'     'What  do 

you '  she    began,   but    broke   off,   and 

asked,  with  a  laugh,  this  utterly  irrelevant 
question :  '  Do  you  wear  a  tunic  too  ?     And 


AUT0BICX5RAPHY  OF  A  BOY  89 

do  you  look  sweet  in   it?'     How  women 
care  for  these  trifles  ! 

A  quite  irrelevant  question,  but  the  only 
feminine  thing  she  had  said.  I  suppose  she 
was  posing ;  but  she  was  an  uncomfortable 
girl,  and  I  do  not  want  to  meet  her  again. 


BROUGHT   BACK   TO   EARTH 


How  true  it  is  that  genius,  to  give  the 
world  of  its  sweetest,  must  be  unhampered 
by  sordid  cares.  Of  late  my  muse  has  had  no 
heart  to  sing.  I  came  across  a  paper,  tossed 
aside  a  while  ago,  which  almost  brought 
tears  to  my  eyes.  On  the  top  I  had  written 
a  title :  '  A  Dirge  of  Desire  Dead,**  and 
there  followed  a  few  lines  which  Sorrow 
herself  seemed  to  have  dictated  to  Song, 
and  then — rows  of  squalid,  hideous  figures, 
and  vulgar  commercial  symbols.  Surely,  I 
mused,  here  is  all  the  pathos  of  life. 

A  care  that  had  some  romance  or  great- 
ness in  it — an  unfaithful  wife  it  might  be, 
or  a  capricious  mistress — I  could  have 
borne.  Indeed,  I  have  had  my  share  of 
such  sorrows,  and  those  who  have  known 
the  secret  have  wondered  at  my  power  of 


94  AUTOBIOGRAPHy  OF  A  BOY 

seeming  to  enjoy  dinners  and  the  like  with 
a  wolf  gnawing  my  heart,  as  in  the  story  of 
the  Spartan  boy.  It  was  the  sordid,  petty 
nature  of  my  troubles  that  destroyed  my 
peace  and  harassed  my  nerves.  It  made  the 
whole  scheme  of  things,  the  whole  frame- 
work of  society,  seem  so  monstrous  and 
futile.  Of  mere  debt,  as  such,  I  have 
always  made  light.  Nay,  to  be  poor,  as 
the  folly  of  the  world  condemns  me  to  be — 
who  might  have  used  riches  so  graciously — 
to  be  poor  and  not  to  be  in  debt  has  seemed 
mean-spirited ;  and  I  cannot  remember  a 
time  since  my  schooldays  when  I  was  what  I 
believe  is  called  solvent.  Debts  sat  lightly 
and  gracefully  upon  me,  and  I  used  to  laugh 
with  my  friends  over  imaginary  trials.  But 
of  late  there  seemed  to  have  been  a  con- 
spiracy to  cause  me  absolute  personal  incon- 
venience. I  received  threatening  letters,  in 
which  what  chiefly  annoyed  me  was  the 
obvious  assumption  that  I  should  feel  the 
insults  of  the  absurd  writers ;  of  course  I 
ignored  them,  but  I  am  sure  the  effect  on 
me  was  depressing.     A  dreadful  man  was  in 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY         95 

the  habit  of  calling  while  I  was  at  breakfast 
and  demanding  money,  and  I  had  consider- 
able difficulty  in  dismissing  him  from  my 
mind.  When  I  should  have  been  meditat- 
ing in  quietude,  I  was  forced  to  hold  con- 
versations with  money-lenders,  the  very 
furniture  of  whose  rooms  upset  me  for 
the  day,  and  of  late  even  these  labours 
had  been  useless.  Perhaps  the  hardest, 
because  the  most  persistent  wrong,  was 
that  I  was  deprived  of  the  simple  enjoy- 
ments of  my  fellows.  Life  is  hard  to  bear 
very  often,  in  any  case,  and  that  one  should 
lack  the  paltry  distractions  of  town  seemed 
almost  inconceivable.  I  could  not  even  go 
to  the  silly  things  they  call  plays,  and 
because  I  owed  money  at  places  where  we 
dine  and  sup,  I  had  often  to  eat  my  meals 
— '  meals '  is  the  horribly  appropriate  word 
— at  home.  I  had  even  to  go  to  the  man — 
but  why  record  these  horrors  ?  It  is  morbid 
to  describe  them  fully;  to  indicate  their 
nature  is  enough. 

It  was  only  a  week  ago  that  Apollo  freed 
me,  and  as  yet  the  nightmare  of  it  all  still 


96  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

oppresses  me.  A  sort  of  crisis  had  come, 
one  man  announcing  his  intention  of  writ- 
ing to  my  father.  My  mother  and  my  sister 
both  refused  to  sell  their  jewels  to  help  me ; 
their  barbaric  preference  of  stones  (for  they 
know  nothing  of  their  beautiful  s3Tiibolism) 
to  my  peace  of  mind  woimded  me,  but  I  am 
a  man  of  strong  natural  affection,  and  I 
have  forgiven  them  before  they  have  asked 
forgiveness.  Then  I  went  to  my  father 
with  my  rows  of  figures.  On  the  whole,  the 
scene  was  artistic.  I  am  naturally  dramatic, 
and  like  to  play  the  parts  of  life  with  zest. 
The  repentant  prodigal  is  a  foolish  and  con- 
temptible person,  but  I  felt  I  owed  it  to  my 
father  to  act  it  vigorously.  My  father''s 
rage  was  all  that  the  most  exacting  critic 
could  have  demanded.  It  was  a  pleasant 
little  comedy,  and  not  imtil  quite  the  end 
of  it  did  I  drop  unthinkingly  into  my 
natural  manner  and  smile  at  my  father's 
solemnity  about  the  'last  time.'  I  felt 
disproportionately  grateful  to  him  for  re- 
moving my  cares,  for  it  cost  him  but  little 
thought  or  pains,  and  I  agreed  readily  to 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY  97 

conform  to  the  wish  which  haunts  him  that 
I  should  *do  some  work.'  How  far  a  sort 
of  half  promise  made  in  such  a  trite  little 
domestic  play  can  bind  one  in  real  life,  I  am 
not  casuist  enough  to  determine.  In  the 
true  sense  of  the  word  there  is  more  '  work ' 
in  a  ballad  of  mine  than  in  years  of  his 
soldiering.  But  work  in  his  sense  would 
be  an  experience  which  I  am  seriously  in- 
clined to  invite. 


FRONTIS    NULLA    FIDES 


I  HAVE  long  passed  that  stage  of  intellec- 
tual development  in  which  we  fret  at  middle- 
class  conventions.  I  contemplate  them  now 
with  infinite  delight  in  their  absurdities.  By 
'  middle-class ""  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to 
imply  any  ridiculous  social  distinction  :  my 
own  father,  excellent  person  that  he  is,  is 
quite  middle-class  in  his  attitude  towards 
life,  and  the  boyish  zeal  which  used  to  prompt 
me  to  make  a  proselyte  of  him  is  gone — alas  ! 
— with  the  snows  of  yesteryear.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  conversed  but  last  week  with 
a  person  in  the  street,  a  quite  vmeducated 
person  without  ideals,  who  seemed  free  from 
commonplace  restrictions.  By  middle-class 
conventions  I  mean  chiefly  respect  for  so- 
called  virtues — truth,  for  instance,  which  is 
simply  want  of  imagination,  or  prudence  in 


102        AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

money  matters,  which  is  simply  grovelling 
■cowardice — and  that  curious  reticence  about 
things  which  may  be  made  charming  in  con- 
versation. I  no  longer  fret  at  these  follies, 
but  try  to  amuse  myself  with  them,  and  have 
often  beguiled  the  weariness  of  a  dinner  at 
home  by  leading  my  father  to  the  verge  of 
some  forbidden  topic  and  observing  his  con- 
fusion. I  even  congratulated  my  aunt  with 
a  perfectly  grave  and  sympathetic  face  on 
her  '  silver  marriage,'  as  though  twenty-five 
years  of  tedious  constancy  were  a  credit  to 
her.  It  was  therefore  doubly  hard  on  me 
that  an  alleged  want  of  respect  for  'propriety' 
— I  really  think  they  are  quite  capable  of 
using  the  word — should  be  made  the  excuse 
for  one  of  those  vulgar  domestic  brawls 
which  my  nerves  have  been  latterly  unable 
to  bear. 

I  was  deceived  in  a  little  woman  who 
came  to  stay  with  us  the  other  day.  Of 
course  you  can  never  be  quite  sure  what 
things  will  please  a  woman  in  conversation. 
Things  which  I  think  disgusting  they  do  not 
mind — I  have  heard  one  discuss  the  food 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY         103 

provided  in  some  workhouse, — while  they 
will  look  scandalised  at  little  quaint  ro- 
mances, little  harmless  vagaries  of  passion. 
But  this  one  was  so  prettily  arch  and  talked 
so  gaily  that  I  took  her  for  an  artistic,  un- 
prejudiced person,  for  one  of  ourselves.  She 
came  into  the  smoking-room  in  the  after- 
noon and  smoked  a  cigarette  with  me.  We 
talked  unaffectedly,  and  laughed  at  the  follies 
of  some  vicar's  wife  she  told  me  about,  and 
I  thought  she  would  be  amused  with  a  story 
of  something  which  happened  to  Hughy 
in  Paris,  the  pink  silk  story.  There  is  a 
strain  of  odd  humorous  pathos  in  it,  and  I 
told  it  as  a  little  idyll  of  a  city,  as  it  is,  with 
no  idea  that  she  would  see  anything  in  it 
that  any  modem  person  would  dislike.  Be- 
fore I  had  arrived  at  the  end  she  rose,  said 
something  about  *  going  too  far,'  and  left 
me.  Of  coiu-se  I  supposed  she  was  in  fun, 
and  admired  the  art  with  which  she  managed 
to  blush.  I  resumed  a  diverting  book  about 
the  early  Fathers,  and  forgot  her. 

In  half  an  hour  a  storm  was  upon  me.     It 
seems   the  deceptive  little  thing  had  sug- 


104         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

gested  to  my  mother  that  I  ought  to  be 
cautioned  for  my  own  sake  not  to  tell  such 

*  improper  stories,'  and  that  my  father  had 
overheard  her.  He  came  into  the  smoking- 
room  simply  foaming,  and  most  ridiculous. 

*  Are  you  drunk,  sir  ? '  he  shouted.  *  Dear 
father,'  I  replied  with  dignity,  '  I  am  never 
drunk  with  wine,  nor  at  present  am  I  drunk 
with  love.    One  may  be  drunk  with  life,  but 

alas  ! '      *  What  the  devil  do  you  mean 

by  insulting  a  lady  under  my  roof  ? '  I  love 
his  melodramatic  expressions,  but  when  he 
talks  about  his  roof  it  is  always  the  prelude 
to  a  tedious  harangue.  In  this  instance  I 
endured  it  meekly,  since  I  could  only  defend 
myself  at  the  expense  (in  his  eyes)  of  our 
guest.  But  I  happened  to  be  alone  with  her 
in  the  drawing-room  before  dinner,  and  could 
not  forbear  to  turn  a  Philistine  weapon 
against  herself.  '  I  am  so  sorry,'  I  said  con- 
tritely, *  that  I  annoyed  you  this  afternoon. 
But  you  know  you  must  have  misunderstood 
my  little  idyll.  I  must  have  told  it  badly ; 
it  is  really  quite  free  from  anything  horrid.' 
She  looked  a  little  confused,  and  I  smiled 
inwardly. 


THE    CLOSING    SCENE 


This  day  I  leave  my  native  land.  It  is  five 
in  the  morning,  the  last  of  the  companions 
who  spent  the  evening  with  me  is  gone,  and 
I  sit  in  my  lonely  room  to  end  this  account 
of  my  life  so  far  before  sleeping  a  few  hours. 
When  they  dine  to-night  I  shall  be  far  away. 
It  is  intensely  dramatic.  A  weaker  man 
might  well  shed  tears,  but  my  eyes  are  dry. 
I  look  round  the  room  and  observe  the 
artistic  confusion  in  the  soft  light  of  the 
lamps — my  fur  coat  lying  carelessly  on  the 
sofa,  my  gloves  thrown  on  the  floor.  I  look 
at  myself  in  the  glass,  and  see  a  white  shirt 
and  tie — symbols  of  civilisation,  such  as  it 
is,  perhaps  worn  for  the  last  time — the 
soft  dreamy  satin  of  my  smoking-coat,  and 
above  a  face,  white  indeed,  but  resolute. 
I  suppose  my  friends  meant  to  be  sympa- 


108         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

thetic  to-night,  but  sometimes  their  tone 
jarred  on  me  a  little.  Themselves  children 
of  luxury,  they  can  hardly  realise  what  it  is 
to  thread  impenetrable  forests  and  fight 
with  the  naked  forces  of  nature.  Hughy, 
indeed,  in  the  little  speech  he  made  at 
supper,  spoke  of  me  lassoing  wild  horses 
and  duelling  across  a  handkerchief  with 
desperadoes,  and  his  voice  for  a  moment 
trembled ;  but  the  others  laughed.  Perhaps 
they  think  I  am  insincere  and  that  I  shall 
avoid  doing  these  things.  How  little  they 
know  me  !  We  dined  together  and  went  to 
the  barbarous,  plush  place  I  am  so  weary  of, 
and  had  supper  in  a  private  room.  I  talked 
gaily  and  naturally,  and  played  my  part  of 
devil-may-care  indifference.  All  perhaps  for 
the  last  time  !  Well,  I  am  tired  of  it :  let 
it  go.  I  suppose  it  is  of  no  use  to  take  my 
evening  clothes  to  Canada. 

The  changes  of  the  last  few  weeks  rise 
clearly  in  my  head,  as  they  say  happens  to 
drowning  men.  I  see  myself,  because  of  his 
wretched  intolerance,  leaving  my  father''s 
house.     Then  these  rooms  which  needed  so 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY         109 

much  thought  after  Bobby's  crude  tastes 
to  make  them  seemly,  and  the  sickening 
obstinacy  of  the  man,  who  refused  to 
harmonise  himself  with  my  plan  of  colour. 
I  was  determined  to  earn  my  bread,  and 
speedily  found  how  hopeless  the  idea  was, 
unless  I  would  abandon  my  better  self. 
And  then  the  discovery  of  the  miserable 
inadequacy  of  the  pittance  my  father  gave 
me  to  the  needs  of  life,  and  the  crueller 
discovery  of  the  dark  side  of  human  nature, 
when  I  went  to  him  and  to  my  other  relations 
for  aid.  I  have  never  thought  very  highly 
of  my  fellow-creatures — they  are  far  less 
graceful  than  cats — but  I  had  given  them 
credit  for  a  few  ordinary  virtues.  My  ex- 
perience when  I  needed  a  little  paltry  money 
robbed  me  of  my  faith  in  man,  and 
Gwendolen  has  taken  from  me  my  faith 
in  woman.  I  had  forgiven  her  the  reticence 
and  subterfuges  which  her  intolerable 
husband  made  necessary,  but  that  she 
should  fail  me  when  the  crisis  came  and 
refuse  to  go  with  me  to  a  freer  life  across 
the    seas    pained    me    bitterly.      Perhaps, 


110         AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY 

though,  she  was  right  artistically  :  the  idea 
was  rather  conventional  and  trite.  But 
morally  she  was  utterly  disappointing. 

In  my  last  interview  with  my  father,  in 
which  he  utterly  failed  to  rise  to  the 
situation,  he  said  that  I  had  wasted  my  life, 
and  curiously  enough  the  thought  has 
recurred  to  me,  though  of  course  from  a 
point  of  view  very  different  from  his.  It 
may  be  that  my  life  has  been  wai-ped  by 
the  conventions  of  my  country.  I  have 
merely  humoured  them  good-naturedly  from 
the  principle  of  noblesse  oblige,  but  they  may 
have  unconsciously  hampered  my  inner  life. 
Yes,  my  nature  will  expand  in  this  wild 
land.  Of  course  I  have  avoided,  so  far  as  I 
could,  learning  anything  about  it,  that  my 
impressions  might  be  absolutely  free.  My 
father  spoke  of  an  agent  whom  I  was  to  see 
on  my  arrival :  I  think  he  wants  me  to  go 
into  a  bank  out  there.  But  I  shall  make 
straight  for  the  forests,  or  the  mountains,  or 
whatever  they  are,  and  try  to  forget.  I 
believe  people  shoot  one  another  there  :  I 
have  never  killed  a  man,  and  it  may  be  an 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  BOY         111 

experience — the  lust  for  slaughter.  They 
dress  picturesquely :  probably  a  red  sash 
will  be  the  keynote  of  my  scheme. 

But  I  must  bring  these  thoughts  to  a 
conclusion.  A  page  in  my  life  is  turned  for 
ever.  I  have  tried  to  compromise  between 
the  imperfect  civilisation  I  found  and  my 
own  nature,  and  the  compromise  has  failed. 
My  relations  of  course — when  did  they  ever 
appreciate  such  an  one  as  I  ?  I  went  among 
the  abandoned,  the  outcasts  of  society,  and 
found  them  as  tame  and  conventional  as 
those  I  had  left,  only  less  polite.  I  loved 
a  woman,  and  she  allowed  all  sorts  of  ana- 
chronistic fantasies  to  stand  between  us. 
Even  my  friends,  even  Bobby  and  Hughy 
and  the  others,  failed  to  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  me  in  my  sordid  difficulties, 
although  they  knew  I  had  no  bourgeois 
prejudices  on  the  subject.  It  is  well :  I 
will  go  from  them  all,  and  perhaps  among 
savage  Indians  may  find  peace.  And  perhaps 
when  some  of  those  I  have  left  read  what  I 
have  written,  and  see  what  they  have  lost, 
they  will  weep  for  what  might  have  been. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  Her  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


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